Very soon, about 50 refugees, currently housed in one of Australia's controversial detention centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island will be leaving to be resettled in the United States.
The arrangement is part of a deal that was set up by the Obama Administration before President Trump. The resettlement deal is one that has been variously described by trump as 'dumb', 'stupid' and 'horrible.'
The resettlement deal
The deal is not completely clear-cut as those refugees selected will still need to pass a strict vetting test before being allowed entry and this process can take months.
The deal was struck by President Obama and was the subject of a strained phone call in January when the two leaders first spoke.
Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017
Trump called the deal "dumb" and made various threats to pull out. In his own words, he said to CNN, " I am the world's greatest person that does not want to let people into the country, and now I am agreeing to take 2000."
The detention centres
Currently, the refugees are being held in the Australian offshore detention centres on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island. Conditions have been described in UN reports as 'brutal'and 'inhumane'.
The UN described the practice of detaining refugees in these undocumented offshore camps as one of "hostility and contempt." They are the subject of a great deal of controversy in Australia as reports of abuse have hit the headlines. In those reports, there have been cases of asylum seekers living in the most inhumane conditions and examples of brutality such as one girl who had her lips sewn together along with countless reports of sexual abuse on women and children.
The deal Trump hates
The deal was originally established in the final months of the Obama administration and was intended to involve the transfer of 1250 Australian refugees in exchange for a group of Central American refugees from camps in Costa Rica. After his testy phone call with PM Turnbull, the US Commander in Chief relented and agreed to the deal but allowed himself one final volley saying that he would tell the American people that he hated it.
Turnbull himself has said that the US is not obliged legally to take all the refugees, and because of the strict vetting that takes place they are not obliged to take one person they do not want.
The final word came from the President who is famously anti-immigration as he said in a CNN article; " It is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal, that I would never have made" but it does stand as yet another example of Trump being forced to back down from his extreme views.
