Standard Operating Procedures: ‘Normal Compliance Operations’

Immigration authorities quickly cast the Rauluni’s death as an ‘unexpected death’. As part of a well-rehearsed set of formalities, then Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, described Josefa Rauluni’s death as a ‘tragic incident’ and extended his sympathies to the family of ‘the man’. Further, he stated that Mr Rauluni did not arrive by boat and that ‘he was detained for removal purposes’; he said ‘his removal was part of normal compliance operations’. In several interviews the Minister emphasised that ‘the gentleman’ had exhausted avenues of appeal and that tribunals made decisions on cases based on the ‘facts’ they have before them. The implication is that the circumstances surrounding Josefa Rauluni’s death were merely an inevitable consequence of his failure to make a successful appeal.

The narrative of an ‘unexpected death’ attempts to absolve the Department and its contractors of responsibility. Rauluni’s death must not be seen as an ‘unexpected death.’ On the contrary, his death emerges as a procedural outcome of the involuntary ‘removals’ and the ‘normal compliance operations’ of the Immigration Department.

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Both ‘removals’ and ‘normal compliance operations’ operate as violent forms of standard operating procedures that systemically generate suicides and other forms of death in detention.