Coordinates: 31°11′7″S 136°48′27″E / 31.18528°S 136.8075°E / -31.18528; 136.8075
The (former) Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre (IRPC) was an Australian immigration detention facility near the village of Woomera in South Australia. Unauthorised arrivals, which had exceeded the capacity of other detention facilities. It was originally intended to hold 400 people, however at its peak in April 2000 it had nearly 1,500 detainees. After ongoing public pressure in response to several well publicised riots from 2000, accusations of human rights abuses, and capacity issues, the centre closed in April 2003.
The site was rebuilt during 2003, and then handed back to the Australian Department of Defence. The facility was renamed "Camp Rapier" in 2004 and has only supported Defence activities on the Woomera Test Range since that time.
For much of its operation during the time the facility was an immigration detention centre, it was run by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), a subsidiary of Wackenhut Security Corporation, under a contract with the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. ACM was criticised over various practices, including failing to staff the Centre adequately, and concealing evidence of child abuse.
Read more about Woomera Immigration Reception And Processing Centre: Background To The Creation of The Facility, Operation of The Woomera Facility, Further Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words immigration, reception and/or centre:
“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Old politicians, like old actors, revive in the limelight. The vacancy which afflicts them in private momentarily lifts when, once more, they feel the eyes of an audience upon them. Their old passion for holding the centre of the stage guides their uncertain footsteps to where the footlights shine, and summons up a wintry smile when the curtain rises.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990)