Djokovic to be deported after court upholds visa cancellation

Novak Djokovic faces deportation from Australia after a court upheld a decision to cancel his visa, ending the tennis star’s bid to defend his Australian Open title as an unvaccinated player despite the country’s tough Covid-19 vaccine requirements.

The Federal Court of Australia on Sunday ruled immigration minister Alex Hawke acted lawfully when he canceled Djokovic’s visa two days earlier citing public interest.

The men’s world No. 1 had arrived in Melbourne as the heavy favorite for a record 10th win at the Australian Open, which starts on Monday and included Djokovic as its top men’s seed. Djokovic, who spoke against vaccine mandates as recently as November, said he believed he had an exemption from rules requiring travelers to the country to have received two shots of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Djokovic had been scheduled to face fellow Serb Miomir Kecmanović on Monday in the Australian Open’s opening round. He could instead be deported from Australia as early as Sunday and might be blocked from returning for three years, by which time he will be 37 and likely past his peak as a player.

Djokovic in a statement said he was extremely disappointed.

Djokovic arrived in Australia as the country grapples with a surge in cases of Covid-19, which authorities had successfully contained until recently, in big part by closing the border. Hawke said that letting the tennis star stay could stoke antivaccine sentiment.

Authorities have been encouraging as many of the country’s 26 million people as possible to get vaccinated as Australia shifts from suppressing the virus to living with it. Djokovic’s arrival in the country made him a lightning rod in the debate over Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

“His presence in Australia, given his well-known stance on vaccination, creates a risk of strengthening the anti-vaccination sentiment of a minority of the Australian community,” Hawke said in a notice to cancel Djokovic’s visa a second time.

The country has one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world. Australia, where children aged 5 to 11 years old only began to receive their first shots last week, has vaccinated roughly 79% of its total population, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has, by comparison, vaccinated 64%.

The number of people hesitant to take the vaccines has fallen sharply over the past year, according to the Melbourne Institute, an economic and social-policy research center at the University of Melbourne, but those still resistant might be entrenched in their view. The center, which tracks community hesitancy to Covid-19 vaccines, says Australia might struggle to convince 10% of its population to receive shots for the coronavirus and that one in four might be hesitant to receive boosters.

Antivaccine protests have occurred in major cities in recent months, sometimes attracting thousands of people to protest mandatory vaccination in certain industries or for children. On Saturday, protesters again marched through Melbourne and Sydney—Australia’s two largest cities—some of them waving Serbian flags and others clutching messages of support for Djokovic.

Djokovic’s attorney Nick Wood had argued that Hawke’s reasoning for wanting to deport the vaccine-skeptic tennis star was flawed because his deportation could also inflame antivaccine sentiment. Hawke’s attorney, Stephen Lloyd, told the court that the minister had noted the protests.

Conflict over vaccine mandates has reverberated through Canberra, the country’s capital. Five coalition senators in November crossed the floor to back a minor party’s bill against vaccine mandates, which was unsuccessful.

Australian lawmaker Craig Kelly last year quit the center-right Liberal Party that governs as part of a coalition after being criticized by Prime Minister Scott Morrison for social-media posts undermining the government’s vaccination strategy. After the court ruled against Djokovic on Sunday, Kelly, who now leads the minor, right-wing United Australia Party, tweeted that “so-called human rights advocates & believers in Australia as a ‘free country’ should be horrified.”

Djokovic was initially detained after he arrived at a Melbourne airport on Jan. 5 and immigration authorities decided his vaccine exemption wasn’t valid. On Monday, a court overturned the cancellation of his visa on technical grounds, freeing him to practice on the blue courts of Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, before Hawke exercised his discretionary power as immigration minister to cancel the visa again.

Many Australians were incensed by Djokovic’s attempt to gain an exemption from vaccination rules. Footage showing two television news anchors criticizing the tennis star, including one labeling him as lying and sneaky, was leaked online by a subtitling company employee. Seven West Media Ltd., one of Australia’s largest media companies, said it would investigate the leak but didn’t apologize for the remarks.

Australians have been living under extreme travel restrictions for most of the past two years. Tens of thousands of Australians were stranded abroad when officials shut the country’s international border, severely restricting arrivals and barring locals from leaving until recently.

Even within Australia travel was heavily curtailed, with lengthy restrictions on state borders that kept people from seeing family and friends for important events such as births and weddings. Sometimes new or tightened restrictions trapped people on the wrong side of state lines from their homes for weeks or months at a time.

Highlighting the sacrifices Australians have made during the pandemic, Morrison, the prime minister, on Sunday said authorities were committed to Australia’s tough border laws.

“Our government has always understood this and has been prepared to take the decisions and actions necessary to protect the integrity of our borders,” Morrison said in a statement.

A spokesman for Hawke, the immigration minister, didn’t immediately respond to questions about Djokovic’s deportation.