Lawmakers demand details of agreement to resettle refugees held in offshore detention centres, asking why Australia ‘refuses to admit these individuals’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Two senior Republicans have written to the Obama administration demanding it release details of the US-Australia refugee deal and accusing it of withholding information from Congress.

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The two men also raised “concern” about their country accepting refugees from countries designated as “state sponsors of terrorism”.

Veteran Iowa senator Chuck Grassley and Virginia congressman Bob Goodlatte, chair of their respective houses’ judiciary committees, addressed Tuesday’s letter to secretary of state John Kerry and secretary of homeland security Jeh Johnson.

Earlier this month Kerry and the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, revealed the US had agreed to consider resettling an unspecified number of refugees from Australia’s Pacific island immigration processing camps.

Grassley and Goodlatte indicated they had been offered a classified briefing on the deal, but instead called for the agreement to be made available to all members of both houses: “We … firmly believe the American people should be fully aware of the specific details of this agreement and why it was done in secret.”

The letter claims Congress learned of the deal through the media, and criticised the administration for not informing legislators during an official refugee consultation in September.

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Grassley and Goodlatte, both members of the Republican party, said the deal and the manner in which it had been conducted was “concerning” for a number of reasons, including the classified nature of details such as how many refugees the US would accept.

“Your departments negotiated an international agreement regarding refugees without consulting or notifying Congress,” they wrote.

“Such information was not disclosed to Congress during the annual refugee consultation that occurred on September 13, 2016, even though your staff confirmed that the agreement had, at the time, been negotiated ‘for months’.”

They also noted the countries of origin of the likely refugees, which they said were countries of “national security concern”, singling out Iran and Sudan as designated state sponsors of terrorism.

“It begs the question why Australia and other countries refuse to admit these individuals, what other countries are doing to help alleviate the situation, what kind of precedent this sets for future refugees interdicted at sea by Australian forces and prevented from entering Australia, and how a similar situation will be prevented in the future.”

The Australian government has repeatedly pledged to prohibit any asylum seeker who arrives by boat from ever settling in the country, even if they are refugees. It says this is to discourage people from risking ocean journeys with people smugglers.

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It has instead sent people to offshore centres on Nauru and in Papua New Guinea for processing by those two nations. Both centres have been plagued with accusations of poor conditions, human rights abuses, and that the lengthy indefinite detention causing harm to detainees.

The Guardian’s publication of the Nauru files revealed widespread trauma and numerous instances of abuse inflicted on children on the island.

Turnbull said that under the deal the number of people – all of whom will have had their claims for refugee status accepted – would be determined by the US and the process would be administered with the assistance of the UNHCR.

He denied it was a “people swap” for refugees Australia had agreed to take from the US refugee program in Costa Rica.

However, because the agreement was made with the Obama administration in the final months before the US election, there are concerns it will never go ahead. US immigration experts have warned Republican president-elect Donald Trump, who campaigned on a platform which included a ban on Muslim immigration, is likely to tear up the deal.