US rethink on migrants
SYDNEY/WASHINGTON US VicePresident Mike Pence says the US will honour a controversial refugee deal with Australia, under which America will resettle 1250 asylum seekers – a deal US President Donald Trump had described as ‘‘dumb’’.
Pence told a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Sydney that the deal would be subject to vetting, and that honouring it ‘‘doesn’t mean that we admire the agreement’’.
‘‘We will honour this agreement out of respect to this enormously important alliance,’’ Pence said.
Under the deal, agreed with former president Barack Obama late last year, the US will resettle up to 1250 asylum seekers held in offshore processing camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. In return, Australia will resettle refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
The White House has already said it will apply ‘‘extreme vetting’’ to those asylum seekers held in the Australian processing centres seeking resettlement in the US.
The deal has taken on added importance for Australia, which is under political and legal pressure to shut the camps, particu- REUTERS larly one on PNG’s Manus Island, where violence between residents and inmates has flared.
Australia’s relationship with the new administration in Washington got off to a rocky start when Trump lambasted Turnbull over the resettlement arrange- ment. Details of an acrimonious phone call between them soon after Trump took office made headlines around the world.
Pence was speaking on the final leg of a 10-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region that had already taken him to South Korea, Japan and Indonesia.
His trip to Australia is the first by a senior official in the Trump administration as the US looks to strengthen economic ties and security cooperation amid disputes in the South China Sea and tension on the Korean peninsula.
Young immigrants brought to the US as children and now there illegally could ‘‘rest easy’’, Trump said yesterday, telling the ‘‘dreamers’’ they would not be targets for deportation under his immigration policies.
As a candidate, Trump strongly criticised Obama for ‘‘illegal executive amnesties’’, including actions to spare from deportation young people who were brought to the US as children and are now there illegally. But since the election, he has spoken more favourably about these immigrants, popularly dubbed ‘‘dreamers’’.
Yesterday he said that when it came to them, ‘‘this is a case of heart’’.
However, the US Department of Justice threatened yesterday to cut off funding to California as well as eight cities and counties, escalating a Trump administration crackdown on so-called ‘‘sanctuary cities’’ that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
‘‘Sanctuary cities’’ in general offer a safe haven to illegal immigrants and often do not use municipal funds or resources to advance the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Those threatened with funding cuts include New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Clark County in Nevada, New Orleans, Miami Dade County in Florida, and Milwaukee County in Wisconsin. Reuters, AP