Asylum seekers won’t be jailed

Australia said it would abandon a controversial policy of jailing all asylum seekers. Immigration Minister Chris Evans, whose center-left Labor government last year swept aside conservative rivals who had been in power for a decade, said detention in often remote immigration jails would now be used only as a last resort.

“A person who poses no danger to the community will be able to remain in the community while their visa status is resolved,” Evans said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s predecessor, John Howard, established the detention policy in late 2001, after special forces soldiers blocked 439 mostly Afghan refugees from landing in Australia.