Refugees from Pacific to be ‘resettled’ in US
‘Terror attack inevitable’
SYDNEY, Sept 20, (AFP): A first wave of refugees will leave remote Pacific detention camps and be resettled in the United States in coming weeks, Australian authorities said Wednesday, under a deal that has rankled President Donald Trump.
Canberra sends asylum-seekers who try to enter the country by boat to processing facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, with those found to be refugees barred from resettling in Australia.
They are instead relocated to third countries, or resettled elsewhere in PNG.
The Australian government struck a pact with Washington under former president Barack Obama to resettle some of them in the United States in return for taking an unspecified number of asylum-seekers from Central America.
Doubts over the arrangement surfaced after Trump took office and attacked it as a “dumb deal” in a heated phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, before begrudgingly agreeing to honour it.
New concerns were raised in July by the sudden withdrawal from PNG of American officials assessing the refugees, days after the US passed its annual 50,000-refugee intake cap.
But Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the first group were expected to depart PNG and Nauru “in coming weeks”.
“The refugees will receive notification of the outcome of their application to resettle under the US Refugee Admissions Programme in coming days,” he said.
“Processing of other individuals continues and further decisions by US authorities are expected in due course. As we have made clear from the outset the resettlement arrangements will take time and will not be rushed.” Turnbull added that this was the “first stage”. “About 25 from both Manus and Nauru will be going to the United States. I just want to thank again President Trump for continuing with that arrangement,” he said.
Their move was subject to Washington’s “very, very thorough vetting, their extreme vetting,” he added.
“But we look forward to more refugees, people who have been judged to be refugees on Nauru and Manus, to be taken to the United States.”
Nearly 800 men are being held on Manus, and 371 men, women and children are detained on Nauru, according to Australian immigration data as of July 31.
The camps’ conditions have been widely criticised by refugee advocates and medical professionals, who say some asylum-seekers suffer from mental health problems due to their prolonged detention.
A PNG court ruled last year that holding people on Manus was unconstitutional, and Canberra is set to shut the camp in October, but it remains unclear what will happen to those not taken by the United States.
Amnesty International urged Washington to take as many refugees as possible to ensure “not a single person is left behind”.
“Amnesty International acknowledges the US for giving people a genuine chance at settling and restarting their lives in a safe place,” said the group’s refugee coordinator Graham Thom.
“But for the sake of those still living in the harmful conditions on Nauru and Manus we are urging the US to take as many people off these islands as possible.”
The Human Rights Law Centre echoed these sentiments, saying while some now had hope, the majority remained in limbo.
“In signing the US deal our government was rightly conceding that it couldn’t just abandon people on Nauru and Manus forever,” said the centre’s director of legal advocacy Daniel Webb.
“That was an important and long overdue concession. Now, it is our government’s responsibility to make sure not a single person is left behind. Not one life can be abandoned in limbo.”
Trump
‘Terror attack inevitable’:
A major attack in Australia is “inevitable”, one of the nation’s top counterterrorism police officers said Wednesday, warning that “anything can happen at any time”.
Australian authorities say they have prevented 13 terror attacks on home soil in the past few years, including an alleged plot in July to bring down a plane using poisonous gas or a crude bomb disguised as a meat mincer.
Canberra also released a national strategy last month to help venue operators prevent vehicle terror attacks carried out in crowded public places following deadly assaults in Europe.
“I don’t like to say it but it will happen. It’s inevitable,” New South Wales Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch, the state’s counter-terrorism boss, told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.
“Despite everything that is being done and the good work that law enforcement and intelligence is doing, without wanting to create unnecessary fear within the community, it’s going to happen.”
Canberra has become increasingly worried about homegrown extremism, and raised the national terror alert level in September 2014. It stands at “probable”, the third in a five-level scale.
That means “credible intelligence, assessed by our security agencies, indicates that individuals or groups continue to possess the intent and capability to conduct a terrorist attack in Australia”.
Murdoch said a key risk was attackers not already on the authorities’ radar, such as two Sydney men currently charged with the alleged plan to bring down an international flight.
“(Domestic spy agency) ASIO tells us that the profile (of a terrorist) is a lone wolf, small groups, rudimentary weapons easily accessible like knives, firearms and cars,” he added.
“So that’s their threat profile and then all of a sudden we get something like a meat grinder.
“What that tells us is that while we are pointed in a particular direction by intelligence sources, we need to maintain an open mind because in this business anything can happen at any time.”
In the heart of Sydney, the state’s capital, concrete blocks have been put in place to act as barriers against vehicle attacks.
State premier Gladys Berejiklian told the newspaper her government was “doing everything we can to keep the community as safe as possible”.
Several terror attacks have taken place in Sydney in recent years, including a cafe siege in 2014 that saw two hostages killed.