Australia's Unwanted Asylum Seekers (Mostly Iranians) to Be Resettled in the US
By Nayla Rush February 2017
Nayla Rush is a senior researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies.
UPDATE, 2/2/17: The deal to resettle Australia's unwanted asylum seekers made between Australia and the outgoing Obama administration is currently on hold. It is not certain yet whether the deal will be honored by the current Trump administration, especially following its latest executive order, temporarily halting refugee resettlement. After a contentious phone call with the Australian prime minister, President Trump on Twitter questioned the basis of such an agreement: "The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!" As we have written before, from the Australian point of view, this is a "great achievement," but it must be one of America's worst deals.
[Australia]
(Originally published 12/5/16) The Obama administration is going to resettle in the United States an unspecified number of asylum seekers from Australia's offshore detention centers on the small island nation of Nauru and on Manus Island, part of Papua New Guinea. Australian officials hope to close both detention centers and resettle most (if not all) detainees before President Obama leaves office.
Negotiations between the two governments have been ongoing for months but the deal was announced just last month, a few days after the U.S. presidential election. Homeland Security officials have already made the trip to Australia to interview detainees. Over 1,600 of them could be resettled into the U.S. by January 20, 2017.
http://cis.org/rush/australias-unwanted-asylum-seekers-mostly-iranians-be-resettled-us
