Name: Australian citizen with ISIS links blocked from returning to Australia | 7.30
Uploaded: 2026-02-18T23:02:14.000Z
Duration: 16 min 39 s
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It's almost seven years since the families of ISIS fighters emerged from the wreckage of the group's so called caliphate.

Exhausted, traumatised, some with terrible wounds.

She's been shot and looks like a while ago.

Now the last of the Australian ISIS families are trying to get home.

On Monday, a group of 11 women and 23 children were allowed to leave a refugee camp in northern Syria that holds ISIS families.

The they were turned around en route to the Lebanon border via Damascus.

It's unclear why they were stopped, but authorities in Syria want all the foreign families gone.

The Prime Minister says the government is not helping.

No sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine, destroy our way of life.

And so, as my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it.

But there has been help, clearly they provide assistance by providing them with a travel document, whether they're legally obliged to or not.

It's a piece of information that shouldn't be extracted, like pulling a tooth.

The government should just be up front with it and then deal with it.

Other ISIS family members already returned to Australia beginning in 2019.

It's not clear why they were allowed to leave while others remained, but

the government continues to say that based on security advice.

Perhaps the security advice they received was that these women were determined to be of low or far less risk than the women who remained detained.

They may have done a deal with the government, who knows?

Essentially, I suspect the Australian government has essentially been just responsive to what, whatever circumstances they are in, rather than actually trying to assist proactively.

The children clearly had no choice about living under isis.

Some of the women have claimed they were coerced into travelling to Syria, but

they made a complex journey in 2014 and 2015 to live in areas controlled by extremists.

In some instances it might have been immaturity.

In other instances they knew exactly what they were doing.

But in terms of just being tricked and reappearing in Islamic State held territory in Syria, that's a very difficult proposition to accept.

The Australians may face charges when they return.

So far, just one woman has been prosecuted for travelling to Syria to live in ISIS controlled territory.

The granting of travel documents coincides with the closure of the main camp for ISIS families at Al Hol, with residents slowly being transferred to a new camp in Aleppo.

It may be that because the refugee camps are being Closed.

These people are now forced to escape and that leads inevitably to the.

The Australian families who got out of Syria in 2019 escaped with the help of the Morrison government and the acknowledgement that children shouldn't be condemned by the acts of their parents.

They've got off to a horrible start in life as a result of the appalling decisions of their parents and they'll find their home in Australia and I'm sure they'll be embarrassed by Australians and, and

as a result of that embrace, I'm sure they will live positive and happy lives.

Unfortunate for the children, though, caught up on that, isn't it?

It is, but we have a very firm view that we won't be providing assistance or repatriation.

At some stage, government is going to have to buy the bullet and say, listen, they are our problem.

We're going to integrate or reintegrate the children.

We are going to prosecute the women who we can prosecute because we have sufficient evidence to do that and then just do it.

This non policy is really a cop out and it's happened from both sides of the government.

Today the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke confirmed one member of the group has been blocked from returning, issuing a temporary exclusion order.

The order made on the advice of security agencies, prevents them coming to Australia for up to two years.

The Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burt, joins me now.

Now, that order that's been made, why was that decision made today?

And so effectively, because the clock starts ticking on these sorts of exclusion orders, the work gets done by the department in advance.

But once reports start to come that somebody might be moving, that's the time that you initiate those sorts of orders.

So to be clear about that, it was the movement of that group, those people from the camp, the reports of the movement, and

You've known about the presence of those women in that camp, you've known about the worsening situation in the adjacent camp for some time.

Why does it take their actual movement to force you into action?

Why not have this in place weeks, months ago?

Well, if we put an exclusion order in two years ago, for example, that time would now be up.

Because you have the beginning of the period where it might be relevant.

Excluding somebody who is not in a position to come is an irrelevant document.

Excluding somebody who might be attempting to come to Australia is relevant.

And so you have the work already being done all the time.

As our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies never stop collecting information.

And then when you have the moment that it could be relevant, then you decide to take the action.

What age is the person we're talking about?

I'm not going to give information that would identify the individual.

The general information I can give you is this.

First of all, temporary exclusion orders cannot be given to somebody under 14.

This individual is somebody who migrated to Australia under the Howard government, received citizenship under the Howard government and went to Syria under the Abbott government.

I won't go to further parts of identification.

The papers have been given to the individual's lawyers.

We made sure that nothing was made public until it was in possession of the lawyers.

They may choose to make the case public, but that'll be up to them.

And has this person applied for a return permit to Australia after receiving that order?

I'm glad you've raised that because a temporary exclusion order basically sets in place a two year period where you can apply for a permit and if you apply by law, a permit must be issued so effectively.

But a permit can provide a 12 month delay.

So while it's called a two year temporary exclusion order, the, the practical impact if someone applies to come is that you can keep them out of Australia for a further 12 months.

That allows more work to be done by your security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

It increases the capacity if there is to be law enforcement action on their arrival for the best possible case to be put together as well.

Now, just to clear up the relationship between this decision and the movement of those women and children to try to get to Lebanon, obviously they were turned around and sent back to the camp.

It's reported that they were carrying Australian travel documents or passports, is that correct?

I've seen those reports and the reality is anyone who's a citizen is able to apply for a passport and receive a passport in the same way.

You must know by the time you've come onto this program tonight whether they did or did not have.