Aussie minister: ‘Economic refugees’ headed for US

CAnBeRRA:

An Australian government minister said “economic refugees” fleeing poverty rather than persecution were among the first asylum seekers to be resettled in the United States under a bilateral deal, adding that an Australia-run immigration camp on the Pacific island nation of Nauru had “the world’s biggest collection of Armani jeans and handbags”.

A refugee advocate said the accusation by Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton was an attempt to justify Australia’s refusal to shelter asylum seekers.

Dutton spoke on Sydney Radio 2GB after Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper published a photograph taken on Tuesday of some of the first 25 refugees from a male-only camp on the Pacific island nation of Papua New Guinea about to board a flight to the United States.

The US State Department said on Wednesday it expected 54 refugees from Nauru and Papua New Guinea to arrive in the United States in the coming days.

Radio broadcaster Ray Hadley said the newspaper photo “looked like a fashion show on a catwalk somewhere in Paris or New York”, with some refugees wearing “designer sunglasses”.

Dutton told 2GB the photo demonstrated that “there are a lot of people that haven’t come out of war-ravaged areas, they’re economic refugees, they’ve got on a boat, paid a people smuggler a lot of money”.

“Somebody once said to me that the world’s biggest collection of Armani jeans and handbags was up on Nauru waiting for people to collect it when they depart,” Dutton said.

Refugee advocate Ian Rintoul, spokesman for Australia’s Refugee Action Coalition, said that by accusing the asylum seekers of achieving a better standard of living by taking the places of genuine refugees who feared for their lives, Dutton was trying to justify Australia’s refusal to give them protection.

“They should have been safe in Australia four years ago and for this minister to continue to try to diminish their claims in any way is self-justification for the fact that he’s never recognised the rights that they properly have,” Rintoul said.

Former President Barack Obama’s administration agreed to accept up to 1,250 of Australia’s refugees kept on Nauru and Papua New Guinea in a deal some saw as repayment for Australia agreeing to accept Honduran and Salvadoran refugees under a US-led resettlement program from a camp in Costa Rica.

President Donald Trump described the deal as “dumb” but has agreed to honour it subject to “extreme vetting” of refugees.

The deal was the subject of Trump’s terse first phone call as president with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in January. — AP