The enduring legacies of deterrence border regimes: Hazara Afghan narratives of social fragmentation in Australia

Since the early 2000s, Australia’s temporary protection visa scheme has operated as a form of what this article terms ‘deterrence-by-proxy’, a policy tactic that uses former refugees’ past prolonged temporary status against them to deter their ability to foster family reunification. While some refugees were granted permanent protection as of February 2023, years spent under temporary status continue to undermine family sponsorship prospects due to entrenched bureaucratic barriers and lost time. This article examines the impact of such policies on the Hazara Afghan community in Australia. I argue that despite having been granted permanent protection, former Hazara Afghan refugees in Australia must still contend with prolonged temporary status’s deterrence-by-proxy effects, namely long-term family separation, which profoundly affects their sense of personhood, historically shaped by the ability to engage in collective struggle and mutual care. While much scholarship has focused on the physical exclusion of migrants under deterrence policies, less attention has been given to how temporary regimes of inclusion erode people’s senses of personhood – especially within communities where togetherness and mutual solidarity have been critical to surviving historical and contemporary injustices.