Woomera, South Australia and Woomera was chosen as a site for such a facility. The establishment of the Woomera Immigration Detention Centre in 1999, through the refurbishment of the original Woomera Village construction camp at 'Woomera West', eventually brought in new permanent staff (as the Nurrungar people were leaving) to settle and maintain the village population at around 1,200. The immigration detention centre, however, proved to be a highly controversial facility and it closed in early 2003 after only about 36 months of operation, at which point the land and buildings were handed back to the Defence Department. Following the closure of the
Villawood Immigration Detention Centre Villawood Immigration Detention Centre Villawood Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) is an Australian immigration detention facility located in the suburb of Villawood in Sydney, New South Wales in Australia. It mainly caters for people who have overstayed their visa permit or those who had their visa cancelled because they have failed to comply with their visa conditions, and some adult male and female asylum seekers who have arrived by boat without visas, whom the Australian government refer to as "Illegal Maritime Arrivals". Though, over the decades since the '50s, various Australian federal legislatures have ratified into law many of the provisions