Nauru Regional Processing Centre

Nauru Regional Processing Centre

Tents and cots from the Nauru offshore processing facility in September 2012
Location in Nauru
Location	Meneng District, Nauru
Coordinates	0°32′26″S 166°55′50″E / 0.54056°S 166.93056°E / -0.54056; 166.93056
Status	Open
Population	1,233 (maximum, 2014); 0 confined after 2019
Opened	2001 (2001)
Managed by	Government of Nauru[1]
Country	Nauru

The Nauru Regional Processing Centre is an offshore Australian immigration detention facility in use from 2001 to 2008, from 2012 to 2019, and from September 2021. It is located on the South Pacific island nation of Nauru and run by the Government of Nauru. The use of immigration detention facilities is part of a policy of mandatory detention in Australia.

The Nauru facility was opened in 2001 as part of the Howard government's Pacific Solution. The centre was suspended in 2008 to fulfil an election promise by the Rudd government, but was reopened in August 2012 by the Gillard government after a large increase in the number of maritime arrivals by asylum seekers^[2] and pressure from the Abbott opposition.^[3] Current Coalition and Labor Party policy states that because all detainees attempted to reach Australia by boat, they will never be settled in Australia,^[4] even though many of the asylum seekers detained on the island have been assessed as genuine refugees.^[5]

The highest population at the centre was 1,233 detainees in August 2014. A number of detainees have since been returned to their countries of origin, including Iraq and Iran.^[5]

By November 2018, some refugees from Nauru (430 in total from both offshore facilities) had been resettled in the United States, but hopes of the United States taking more had faded. Although New Zealand had repeatedly offered to take 150 per year, the Australian Government refused. There were still 23 children on the island, as the government had bowed to public pressure and started removing families with children, after reports of suicidal behaviour and resignation syndrome had emerged.^[6]

In February 2019, the last four children on the island (of an original 200 in detention on Nauru in 2013) were resettled in the United States with their families.^[7] By 31 March 2019, there were no people held in the detention centre, which had been closed;^[8] however as of March 2020, there were 211 refugees and asylum seekers remaining on the island.^[9] As of 13 June 2020, a father and son were the last family left on Nauru; there was one single woman and the remaining people were single men.^[10]

In 2020, over 100 men from Manus and Nauru were being detained in a hotel in Brisbane, after being transferred to the mainland for medical treatment. They were confined to quarters under a lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, and eventually released into the community in February 2021.

In September 2021 the Australian Government signed a new deal with Nauru to keep an ongoing form of asylum seeker processing centre on the island. There were around 107 asylum seekers remaining on Nauru as of July 2021.

The detainees at the centre have suffered serious human rights abuses and there are widespread reports of suicide and psychiatric illness.