Rapper Ye could be denied entry to Australia due to “awful” anti-Semitic comments he made last year, a government minister said Wednesday.
“He seems like he’s a pretty big fan of a person who killed six million Jewish people last century,” education minister Jason Clare said on Channel Nine’s Today show. “People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected.
“I expect that if he does apply, he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions that they did.”
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has not publicly shared any plan to travel to Australia but media outlets there have speculated he will want to visit the family of his rumoured wife Bianca Censori.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton told Melbourne’s 3AW on Tuesday that Ye’s “anti-Semitic comments are disgraceful, his conduct and his behaviour are appalling and he’s not a person of good character.”
Dutton added: “My inclination would be not to allow him in.”
Australia has refused or revoked visas to individuals who have expressed far-right views, including Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, but typically there has to be a belief that there is potential for incitement of violence.
A spokesperson for immigration minister Andrew Giles told the Sydney Morning Herald that he was unable to comment on individual cases.
Jewish groups have called on Giles to ban Ye from Australia because he has “the capacity to exercise enormous influence over younger people.”
Ye came under fire – and lost much of his business empire – after threatening to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” in a tweet (a reference to the U.S. military DEFCON alert) and for claiming there are “good things about Hitler.”