The agency works closely with Australian immigration officials, but does not use religion as a criterion. In 2015 and 2016 the agency selected 6,444 refugees from the region for resettlement in Australia. Twelve percent were Christian — just 782 people.

The other way is to apply for asylum directly to the Australian government. This route is stacked in favor of Christians, whether they be Armenian Apostolic, Assyrian Orthodox, Syrian Catholic or one of dozens of other Christian denominations. Indeed, since the total pool of refugees admitted to Australia in this period was so largely Christian, the government must have approved few if any Muslims seeking asylum by direct application.

When I asked the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection about its criteria for selecting refugees, it didn’t dispute the policy has a religious bias. But a spokesman said applicants don’t have to disclose their religion.

But telling refugees they don’t have to declare their faith is like telling them they don’t have to choose a gender. The Australian data puts the number of admitted refugees who didn’t state their religion at 0.07 percent.

Muslims, especially those from the Middle East, have an image problem in the Western world. Concerns are fed by a legitimate fear of terrorism and the alienness of Muslim and Arabic social norms, clothing and language.

In Australia, hostility is fanned by populist politicians and Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspapers, which are eager to seize on perceived slights to Anglo-Australian culture by the nation’s tiny population of militant or orthodox Muslims. The attack outside the British Parliament on March 22 prompted a prominent Australian anti-Muslim politician to start a hashtag: #pray4muslimban. Last month, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he would make it harder to obtain citizenship. The new rules will require behavior consistent with “Australian values,” a vague test that many commentators on the right and left regard as aimed at Muslims.