The Refugee and Immigration Legal Service (RAILS) is a community legal centre based in South Brisbane. For over 40 years, RAILS has provided free legal assistance, advocacy and education in immigration and refugee law to people in Queensland. As Queensland’s only community legal centre specialising in refugee and immigration law, RAILS seeks to promote a fair and humane justice system, and empower the most vulnerable refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.

Ben Carrick is a legal practice director at RAILS with responsibility for issues that cut across the RAILS legal practice, as well as legal education, law reform and strategic litigation. He has practised in refugee and immigration law for 15 years in Western Australia, New South Wales, Nauru and Queensland. He has a LLM and PhD from University of Melbourne Law School and has taught at University of WA, University of Melbourne and Swinburne Online.

Ben gratefully acknowledges the work of Bunu Gautam and Taya Hunt on the previous version of this chapter, much of which remains current. Some information has also been taken from the Department of Home Affairs website.