"Brought to Australia as a ‘student’, Henry was made into a slave", 23 July 2023

If you believe what it says on Yongge “Henry” Qi’s visa, he came to Australia to study. But he never went to the marketing and communication course he was enrolled in, and it was fanciful to think he could: the only English words he knows are “yes” and “no”.

[...]

An investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes can also reveal that influencers on Chinese social media apps with hundreds of millions of users are luring people to Australia with false promises of permanent residency.

[...]

Through a translator, Qi said he was lured to Australia by his employer with the promise of free accommodation, food, air tickets and a comfortable salary, but he ended up being treated like a slave.

[...]

The misuse of education visas is one of the rorts that have allowed criminals to traffic large numbers of people into the country to be exploited. A recent report by former police chief Christine Nixon also showed “grotesque” abuses of the visitor and asylum visa systems.

[...]

Dong said other common scams were to bring people to Australia on visitor visas and then have them falsely apply for asylum. These people could then keep working as they appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which has a years-long backlog of cases, and then to judicial review.

[...]

Participating employers see it as a “path to get cheap labour”, he said.

[...]