Woomera, South Australia Immigration Detention Centre, and the return of the site to the ADF, Woomera West was redesigned, altered, and re-established as a secure defence garrison support facility and renamed 'Camp Rapier'. It is now frequently used by the Australian Army and squadrons of the RAAF's Airfield Defence Guards as a base camp for specialized training and testing activities. It also has had a detachment of Australian Air Force Cadets from South Australia stay there. Post-2003, the village population stabilized at about 400, but has subsequently dropped to around 150-200. When the RAAF assumed operational command of Woomera in 1999, there was
Immigration detention in Australia temporary visa. In 1992, Australia adopted a mandatory detention policy obliging the Australian Government to detain all persons entering or being in the country without a valid visa, while their claim to remain in Australia is processed and security and health checks undertaken. Also at the same the law was changed to permit indefinite detention, from the previous limit of 273 days. Mandatory detention continues to be part of a campaign by successive Australian governments to stop people without a valid visa (typically asylum seekers) entering the country by boat. The policy was instituted by the Keating Government in 1992,