PNG ‘will not accept’ Aussie plan to deport grandfather to Western

Chief Immigration Officer Solomon Kantha says that they will not accept a purported Papua New Guinean citizen deported by the Australian government.
Kantha said this yesterday after Australian immigration was reported to be preparing to deport a 55-year-old grandfather to Western.
“PNG Immigration will not allow anyone entry into the country until their citizenship status is verified and confirmed to be Papua New Guinean,” he said.
“To date we have not received any formal report or request from Australian authorities”.
Daniel Gibuma told Australian media that he had lived for 48 years in Australia.
He is currently being held in Western Australia’s Yongah Hill Detention Centre.
He completed a six-month jail sentence for an assault conviction in January and was met by Border Force officials upon his release.
Gibuma was born in PNG but was adopted by his uncle at age seven to live on Boigu – Queensland’s most northerly island.
“I lived there and never went back to PNG, (and I) met my wife and my children and lived in Australia until this day,” he said.
Earlier, Kantha had expressed similar sentiments concerning reports that the Australian government would deport a longtime Australian resident to PNG because of habitual criminal behaviour.
Australian media reported that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton had cancelled 39-year-old Daniel Love’s permanent residency, locked him up in an immigration detention centre and was preparing to deport him to PNG
Love is of mixed Aboriginal and PNG parentage and had been living in Australia since he was five years old. However, Kantha said yesterday that as this person had grown up in Australia “we would be concerned about any decision to deport him to PNG until we also establish his legal status if he is a PNG citizen”.
“I will advise our immigration counterparts in Australia to liaise with us so we can also establish if he is a PNG citizen or has lost his PNG citizenship,” he said.