Not so.

TRAN THANH TUAN: Every day, you wake up in here, look like you`re doing life in here. Everyday I see people walk out the gate and go home, and I think to myself, why? I feel it is my time two years ago - they should have let me out.

NGUYEN THANH VU: Once caught, I was sentenced to two years in prison. But after I completed my sentence, the Department of Immigration still keeps me in prison another two years up to now. They should either say they`ll deport me to Vietnam or else release me.

Tran Thanh Tuan and Nguyen Thanh Vu are doing time in Sydney`s Parramatta jail. But both finished their sentences more than two years ago. Neither know when they`ll be released. They remain in jail at the discretion of a Federal Minister.

PHILIP RUDDOCK, MINISTER FOR IMMIGRATION: If you are involved in dealing with drugs which are going to take the lives of young Australians, if you are involved in beating up on Australians in robberies with violence, if you take the life of an Australian, and you are not a permanent resident who has taken out Australian citizenship, you are liable to criminal deportation. That is the outcome.

Tuan was sentenced to 16 months jail in July 1997 for supplying heroin. It wasn`t his first offence. Tuan has been in and out of jail five times over the last decade for drug offences. He`s also done time for assault and stealing. He`s now on the methadone program.

Soon after landing in jail this last time, Tuan and Vu were told by the Department of Immigration they would be deported to Vietnam. The problem is Vietnam is reluctant to take them back. They`re stuck in jail while Australia and Vietnam negotiate the conditions of deportation. It`s a diplomatic stand-off that`s already been going on for over four years.

CHRIS LEVINGSTON, LAWYER: There`s no doubt that the Vietnamese government doesn`t want them back. There is no doubt about that at all, otherwise they would have signed off on the memorandum of understanding. This is all diplomatic double-talk. The Vietnamese government has no interest in taking back citizens who left because they didn`t like that government. Why would they take back people with criminal convictions? It doesn`t make sense.

Tuan and Vu aren`t the only Vietnamese stuck in jail after finishing their sentences. Insight has identified 34 similar cases around the country.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: There has been some delay, because Vietnam wants to have a formal agreement with us in relation to the way in which the deportations will occur. We are negotiating that and I hope that it will be resolved shortly.

REPORTER: What`s the stumbling block?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: I don`t intend to go into the details of the matters that are being negotiated, save to say that countries want to be entitled to satisfy themselves to the fact that the people who are being returned are their nationals.

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: To hold them in custody indefinitely is just insane. It is wrong. It is immoral. It is unjust. It is, in my view, a misapplication of power. It is, in my view, illegal.

Chris Levingston is a criminal lawyer working in Sydney. He`s not only angry that Australia keeps people locked in jail who`ve finished their sentences. Levingston believes Australia has failed these people, all of whom came to Australia from Vietnam as adolescent refugees.

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: There is no doubt in my mind at all that their history has determined their future. They were set up for failure. They come to Australia and they`ve got very limited family connections and they`re released into the community - "Welcome to Australia" and that`s it. A pat on the back isn`t any substitute for a family environment. They fall into the hands of gangs because they`re looking for some affirmation that they`re worth something, and the only place they`re going to get that is with a gang. And they do the work of gangs, which is dealing in drugs and trouble, and they find themselves on this rollercoaster of crime and misery.

When Saigon fell in 1975, many of those who`d worked for the former South Vietnamese government ended up in re-education camps. Nguyen Thanh Vu`s father, Quang, was one of them.

NGUYEN QUANG: The communist government discriminated against the families of those who worked for the South Vietnamese government. Because of that, I tried to find a way to escape Vietnam to have freedom. On my way out of Vietnam, I took my older son Tung and Vu, the younger one, with me.

Vu escaped Vietnam with his father and older brother, like many other Vietnamese, in a fishing boat. The plan was that the rest of the family would join them a month later. But two months after landing in a Malaysian refugee camp, they received a letter from relatives back in Vietnam.

NGUYEN THANH VU: When I got home that day, I found Dad crying, very sad. He said Mum and the rest of the family were dead, presumably lost at sea. My brother and I also cried when we heard that, because back in Vietnam, the mother is the parent closest to the children. She loves them most.

NGUYEN QUANG: He learned of their fate when he was still young, around 17 years old. At night he missed them and cried himself to sleep, but he didn`t know what to do to get rid of the sadness.

Quang and his sons spent two years in the refugee camp until they were finally accepted by Australia as refugees. Vu spent three months learning English and then went to Bankstown High. Here he struggled to keep up.

NGUYEN THANH VU: I was put in Year 10 but I didn`t understand much in class, so I got bored with school and I didn`t want to study anymore. It was also sad at home, so I went out with people. I was sad so I played truant, I hung out in the shopping area. I met people and liked them, made friends with them. I was immature then and liked to have fun. Even then, I still didn`t use drugs. Only after I hung around them for a while and some of them used drugs that I started to use drugs.

NGUYEN THANH VU: I dared not tell Dad when I first started using drugs because I was afraid that he`d worry and get angry. I was addicted and sad, so I left home. I no longer lived with my family, so I didn`t tell Dad.

So began Vu`s struggle with drug addiction and crime.

Thanh Tuan Tran`s mother wanted a better life for her family. She was scared of Tuan having to join the Vietnamese army when he turned 18.

TRAN THANH TUAN: She said I have to go overseas to have better life and better future for you. She don`t want them to take me to the army. I might get killed on the field or I might come back one hand, one leg, one eye, know what I mean?

NGUYEN THANH VU: We left Vietnam together, uncle and nephew. The boat journey took three or four days at sea. We reached the island of Pulau Galang in Indonesia and spent more than a year in a refugee camp. At that time, many people tried escaping from Vietnam. Every day, people got caught and died. He knew all that. He was scared.

In 1984, Australia granted Tuan and his uncle asylum as refugees. They arrived in Sydney and were reunited with Tuan`s older brother, who`d arrived two years previously.

HUU LOC NGUYEN: We came here with both hands empty. That`s why everybody work.

While Tuan went to school, his brother and uncle worked double shifts to support them all and the family back in Vietnam.

TRANH TUNG TRAN: My uncle working, I`m working. It`s very lonely if he`s home. That`s why he needs friends. But the friends are very bad friends. Because he got some friends who got no-one here. No parent, they on the street all the time.

Tuan`s brother and uncle desperately tried to help him, but they didn`t know how.

HUU LOC NGUYEN: We`d see him on the street, drowsy under the influence of drugs. Sometimes we`d take him home and lock him in a room. He wanted to get out. He complained that he was caged like a dog. So we had to let him out. But then he`d disappear. I was sad knowing he had no parents and it was me who brought him here. But I didn`t know what to do. I took him to the detox centre in Fairfield a few times, but he dropped out halfway and refused to continue. That made me angry and once I hit him, but he kept quiet.

By the time Tuan was warned by the Department of Immigration in 1994 about deportation, he was leading a life of crime to support his heroin addiction. Although he tried several times to get off the drugs, he couldn`t.

TRAN THANH TUAN: Drugs, they make me turn upside-down, put me in jail and take everything from me. I really want to be like a normal person, get away from drugs, get on with my life and help my family back home. Where they live, still poor. I want to be a good son, so my family can see me and feel proud. I don`t want my family to feel hurt for me. And I don` t want... maybe if I keep using drugs, one day I might die on the street.

When Vu ended up in jail four years ago, his father had no idea why.

NGUYEN QUANG: When I first came to see him in jail, we were numb with shock and couldn`t find words to express our feelings. After the emotions subsided, I managed to ask why he`d been put in jail. He said he was caught when he and a friend were using a white powder.

NGUYEN THANH VU: Drugs terrify me now. There`s no way I`d get involved with drugs again and get sent to prison. I`m scared of prison. I know I made a mistake, so I`m at peace with myself. I know I deserved my sentence. I`m trying to serve it until the end, until I`m free, but up to now, even though I admit my mistake, I am still not given a chance.

Vu and Tuan are stuck in jail now not because they have committed crimes - they are in jail because they never took out Australian citizenship. It`s only permanent residents, not citizens, who the Minister can deport.

But both Tuan and Vu didn`t know the difference between a resident and a citizen when they were in a position to apply for citizenship - before they committed their crimes.

NGUYEN THANH VU: No, at that time I knew nothing about getting citizenship. I didn`t know the difference between permanent residency and citizenship.

Meanwhile, Vu`s father and brother did become citizens.

NGUYEN QUANG: I made preparations to get Australian citizenship at the beginning of 1994. By then, Vu had already left home, no longer lived with me. So I prepared the forms just for myself. When I saw him, I urged him to do the same and he said he`d apply separately.

Vu lodged an application for citizenship, but he didn`t get an interview. By that time, he was already going off the rails and had committed his first offence.

Tuan got even closer to getting citizenship. Not only did he apply, he says he had it approved.

TRAN THANH TUAN: That`s the first time I got in custody - about a week later, they put me in jail. That`s why I can`t go get it.

REPORTER: So your application for Australian citizenship was approved, but because you were in custody, you couldn`t pick it up?

TRAN THANH TUAN: Yes.

REPORTER: Is there an anomaly with people who ended up with a piece of paper, citizenship, as opposed to those that didn`t, being able to stay, and those that didn`t getting deported?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, it`s not an anomaly, it`s the law. The law determined that if you satisfy our good character requirements when you get citizenship, you are a citizen.

REPORTER: But an Australian citizen can go out and commit all these crimes and be back on the streets.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: That`s right.

REPORTER: Minister, do you honestly believe that by getting rid of these people, by deporting them, that it will make any appreciable difference to the drug scene in Australia?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: The Parliament, over a long period of time, has determined that we don`t have to keep these people who do commit serious criminal offences in Australia. You say appreciable difference; you remove from Australia 100, 150 serious criminals every year - that may mean a reduction in the distribution of hard drugs.

The issue for anyone caught in the cycle of drugs and crime, regardless of whether they are an Australian citizen or a permanent resident, is getting and staying off the drugs.

Vincent Doan runs Open Families, one of the few services in Cabramatta that helps do just that. But he estimates that without work, education or support, 90% of drug users who get out of jail end up back on the drugs and back inside.

VINCENT DOAN, WELFARE WORKER: If we want to help them, then we should actually help them to quit. We should put more services in place to help these people to quit. And if we can get one person out of the whole field of drugs and then that person don`t need to be here to sell again, that`s the only way out.

If Tuan and Vu do get released, it`ll be the Cabramatta community which they`ll return to. Two weeks ago, the Vietnamese community featured prominently at Cabramatta`s youth festival.

THANG NGO, FAIRFIELD COUNCIL: The Vietnamese community already has a very bad name in relation to drugs and crime in general, especially with its young people, and the last thing the community wants is any of this resurfacing or being seen to be soft on these people. And it`s understandable, because they want to show that they fit in, that they are against crime as much as any other member of Australian society, and that`s understandable; but because of those pressures, they haven`t been as supportive of these cases as I believe that they should.

Thang Ngo is doing his rounds of the local Cabramatta community. He`s received several letters from Vietnamese prisoners who`ve written to him, desperate for help. Tuan was one of them.

THANG NGO: To me, when I read the letters for the first time, it was very black and white. It was saying, "I committed an offence and I`m in prison, but I finished my offence, yet I`m still in prison." These people were accepted here under a humanitarian program. These people qualified just like any other people who come to Australia. Australia, under its humanitarian program, should accept the good with the bad.

A few weeks ago, Thang Ngo arranged a meeting with the Department of Immigration. It didn`t go well.

REPORTER: What did Immigration say about your brother`s situation?

TRANH TUNG TRAN: He has to go back.

REPORTER: So they`re not prepared to negotiate - they want to send him back?

TRANH TUNG TRAN: Yes.

REPORTER: How are you feeling about that?

TRANH TUNG TRAN: Very bad, very sad about that one.

REPORTER: Thang, do you hold out any hope at all after this meeting you`ve just had with the families and Immigration?

THANG NGO: No. The Department of Immigration is quite clear that they will not reverse their decision in this case, that when the Vietnamese government will take them back, these people will be deported to Vietnam.

Both Vu and Tuan`s families blame themselves for the situation their sons are now in.

NGUYEN QUANG: I was sad, distressed because of my circumstances. I didn`t look after him, didn`t raise him properly. It`s my fault as Vu`s father. I didn`t fulfill my responsibility to him. I do feel ashamed in front of my friends. I see other Vietnamese families who have settled here. Their children have done well, yet my son broke the law.

Vu is also scared about being sent back to Vietnam.

NGUYEN THANH VU: I feel I wouldn`t be allowed to go free there since because Dad used to work for the South Vietnamese government. Then I escaped from Vietnam, so in their view, I committed treason. I don`t know how they will treat me.

The Vietnamese prisoners do have the right to challenge their deportation orders in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. In 1999, Vu went to the AAT. Unable to afford a lawyer, he represented himself.

NGUYEN THANH VU: Yes, it was very hard because I`m no lawyer. When you appear in court, if the lawyer of the prosecution said something, I think not just me, even a normal person, would be unable to answer all the questions correctly.

Vu failed to get his deportation order overturned.

Chris Levingston says he didn`t stand a chance in the AAT without legal representation.

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: I could not advise anyone to go without legal representation, but you can`t get legal aid - legal aid will not assist you at all. These people cannot afford private solicitors and barristers. Their families cannot afford to pay for legal representation. So what we get is bad cases with good facts going to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and crashing and burning at a very early stage. The procedure just grinds them into dust.

Levingston has taken on some of the Vietnamese cases, but he says the odds aren`t good.

In early 1999, the Minister for Immigration issued a direction. Levingston believes this prevents the AAT from being a proper avenue of appeal for the Vietnamese.

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: It is a triumph of form over substance. It does not, in my view, constitute a legitimate, arm`s-length, bona fide appeal process.

REPORTER: Why not?

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: Well, because the Minister has interfered in it with his direction. He`s saying to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, "Don`t make a mistake - let me tell you what my view is," and it`s in writing and they are bound by it.

REPORTER: So the only way for these guys to change their circumstances is to appeal directly to the Minister?

CHRIS LEVINGSTON: That`s correct, and if the Minister has already made up his mind, you`re a goner.

PHILLIP RUDDOCK: The reason I am taking as many decisions as I am is to take the matter out of the AAT`s hands, because quite frankly, in my view, the AAT has been very lenient in relation to these matters.

REPORTER: So essentially what you`re saying is you`ve taken it out of the hands of the AAT, these people don`t have any rights of appeal at all?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: The decision rests with me.

REPORTER: Is it fair, though, that the fate of the people who don`t understand very well the political system, who can`t get legal representation, who can`t get legal aid, is it fair that the fate of their lives rests with one man now - you?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, the Parliament has determined that that should be the case, and I don`t flinch in relation to taking decisions that I`m charged to take. But I would reject that in taking those decisions, that I am not cognisant of the sorts of factors that you have talked about.

But the Minister for Immigration is now under pressure from state governments, which hold the Vietnamese prisoners in their jails.

JOHN WATKINS, NSW MINISTER FOR CORRECTIVE SERVICES: I`m not happy that we`re holding in NSW prisons prisoners who have finished their sentence. They should not be there. We`ve made that clear to the Federal Government, the Federal Minister, and we expect them to resolve the matter. At the end of the day, I think they will need to have more secure centres where they can detain these people.

Although Vu and Tuan admit they`ve let their families down before, they`re asking for one last chance.

TRAN THANH TUAN: I love my family very much. The people out there, I love them so much. I know they`re waiting for me. I don`t want to hurt them. Even myself too, I want a better future.