The law requires them to be detained. Some people say, let them go. We know many of them are not refugees - some are, but we know many are not. Canada is moving towards adopting a mandatory detention regime for people who arrive unlawfully by boat. Because when people arrive by boat and are released into the community, and are asked to come back for processing, they can never be found.
Desperate people do desperate things.
It doesn't mean the policy of detention is wrong. It means you have to manage a humane detention policy while ensuring the legislative purpose is met. This week's acknowledgment that the government might need to find better ways of detaining women and children is another step in Ruddock's battle to satisfy people that policy is always open to reassessment. But he still believes mandatory detention is best right now. They're now in Sydney, with jobs driving taxis, they're working in market gardens, doing this, doing that'.