Malcolm Turnbull adamant that resettlement of up to 1,250 refugees detained by Australia will take place, but some officials say privately deal now ‘can’t survive’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Australia is scrambling to save its agreement to resettle refugees in the US after Donald Trump raged publicly at “a dumb deal” and told the country’s prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in private it was the “worst deal ever”.

The US president took to Twitter late on Wednesday night in Washington to condemn the refugee swap and brand the asylum seekers held in camps on Nauru and Manus Island “illegal immigrants”.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!

His intervention came after the Washington Post reported that Trump had despaired of the deal when talking to Turnbull on Saturday afternoon (Sunday morning in Australia), told him that the conversation was the worst of his round of phone calls with world leaders that day, and then brought the 25-minute call to a close.



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Trump’s pledge to “study” the agreement forced a public response from the Australian prime minister.

Turnbull dug in, saying emphatically in radio interviews he had a personal commitment from the president “confirmed several times now by the [US] government”.

“We have a clear commitment from the president,” Turnbull told Melbourne radio station 3AW. “We expect that the commitment will continue.”



But a departmental source with knowledge of the deal acknowledged: “It’s over. It can’t survive … it was never going to survive Trump’s immigration ban.”

Details of the angry Trump call came only hours after it was reported that a leaked transcript of a call between the US president and his Mexican counterpart had Trump saying he could send troops south of the border to take care of “bad hombres”.

The Associated Press, which cited the leaked transcript, said Trump told Enrique Peña Nieto: “You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared.”

Trump’s fury over the Australian deal appeared to be mostly directed at the former president Barack Obama rather than Turnbull. But some US politicians expressed dismay that the new president was threatening the close relationship between the two countries.



Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) As Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee-and as an American-I find this unhinged behavior by @POTUS to PM Turnbull embarrassing & shocking https://t.co/TY3VrrZ9qZ

Trump, according to the Post report, accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers”.



The report said the friction between the two leaders “reflected Trump’s anger over being bound by an agreement reached by the Obama administration to accept refugees from Australian detention sites even while Trump was issuing an executive order suspending such arrivals from elsewhere in the world”.

The Post’s report said Trump abruptly ended the call with Turnbull but the Australian prime minister denied that element of the report, saying the conversation had ended courteously.

While he declined to be drawn on other details, saying Australia had “very strong standards” about confidentiality when leaders spoke to other leaders, and followed diplomatic protocols, revealing only what had been mutually agreed – Turnbull acknowledged the conversation had been “frank and forthright”.

The deal brokered between Obama and Turnbull last November originally forecast the resettlement of up to 1,250 refugees from Australia’s offshore detention islands of Manus Island and Nauru.

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Both Australian-run detention camps have been the subject of sustained criticism by the UN, human rights groups and other nations over systemic sexual and physical abuse of those detained, including rapes, beatings, and the murder of one asylum seeker by guards; child sexual abuse; chronic rates of self-harm and suicide; dangerous levels of sustained mental illness, harsh conditions and inadequate medical treatment leading to several deaths.

The majority of the refugees held on the detention island by Australia – most for more than three years – are Iranian, one of the nationalities named under Trump’s sweeping immigration bans announced last weekend.

There are also significant cohorts of Iraqis, Somalians and Sudanese, also banned from entering the US.

On the detention centre island of Manus Island and Nauru, refugees report widespread disenchantment after more than three years of detention without trial or charge, and another dashed hope of resettlement.



Following Trump’s executive order banning refugee intakes from seven Muslim-majority countries, an Iranian teenage refugee on Nauru attempted to hang himself at the processing centre on the island. He was taken by police and held in jail.

One refugee on Nauru, who did not wish to be named for fear of repercussions, told the Guardian: “Everyone has the same feeling: tired and disappointed – no hope and no more patience – for the guys specially, women and the children.”

On Manus Island, Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, a refugee who has been held in detention for more than three years, said Trump would humiliate Australia over the deal.

“I wonder how Australian politicians do not see that Trump cannot accept the deal because it would hurt himself politically. He cannot because of ideological reasons. He is building a wall, how can he take the refugees from Australia?”

The chaotic nature of Trump’s administration has been revealed in the past few days with contradictory reports of whether the Republican administration would honour the deal struck by Obama.



The deal was confirmed by White House spokesman Sean Spicer, before being walked back hours later in a phone call from another presidential aide. It was then confirmed by the state department, and further by the US embassy in Canberra, before the president’s tweet cast grave doubt on whether the deal could progress.

Earlier in the day, the US state department had insisted the deal was on. “President Trump’s decision to honour the refugee agreement has not changed,” a US embassy spokesperson in Canberra said in a statement.

Trump’s use of the description “illegal immigrants” is loaded and wrong.

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It is not illegal to arrive in a foreign country without a visa or other documents in order to seek asylum: international law permits it, as does Australian domestic law.

The vast majority of the people held on both of Australia’s offshore detention islands have been found to be refugees – that is they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland and they are legally owed protection.

It is unlawful to forcibly return those people to their home country – the principle of non-refoulement.

On Manus Island, of 859 people finally assessed, 669 – 78% – have been found to be refugees; 190 have been found not to have a claim for protection.

On Nauru, of 1,200 refugee status determinations, 983 people – 82% – have been found to be refugees, while 217 were refused refugee status.

The deal with Australia does not commit the US to unconditionally accepting any number of refugees from Australia’s offshore detention islands. The deal only commits the US to allowing refugees to “express an interest” in being resettled in America. Any, even all, refugees may be rejected during the “extreme vetting” process.

