Illegal immigrants to Australia

I have a friend who helped to found the Heritage Foundation, which is the dominate Conservative think tank in Washington. I only met him in person one time, but we hit it off immediately. His name is Fritz Rench and he was the treasurer of the Heritage Foundation until recently. He forwards me articles and writings from places that I would never receive if I did not know him. He recently sent me an article about the Australian illegal immigration situation that I will summarize in my own words in this column.

Australia is a continent below the equator and south of Japan and the Philippines. Australia was first settled in the late 1700s. It was formed as a nation with a Constitution in 1901. The first settlers were prisoners from England and Christianity came on the first boat with the prisoners. Today’s population is 61.1 percent Christian and less than 2 percent Muslim. Muslims create enough problems in the country that their immigrating to Australia is discouraged even though the nation will do its share to help refugees. There was an original population of the continent who were called Aborigines who still live in the country. Today’s population is just over 24.5 million citizens. By comparison, the United States official population is just under 319 million with an uncounted, undetermined number of illegal people in the country. The land area of Australia is just under 3 million square miles. The land area in the United States is only 3.8 million square miles by comparison. There are six states in Australia and the population is heavy on the eastern coast and the outer ring of the country. A great portion of the center of the country is unpopulated, undeveloped and desert.

Just as most of the industrialized countries of the world, they are taking in refugees from troubled countries that today are mostly Muslim. They are resettling 12,000 Syrian Muslims this year, in addition to approximately 15,000 refugees that they take in from other locations around the world. Along with the birth rate, the population increases about 50 thousand each year. The Muslim refugees are instructed that they will not be able to practice Sharia Law and they must assimilate into Australian culture and practice the same cultural practices of Australians. They must learn the English language. They do not plan to adjust the Australian culture to accommodate their Muslim religion. If Muslims break the law they will be sent out of Australia after they serve their time in prison.

The refugees that Australia objects to on a permanent basis are those that try to come into Australia illegally. Since it is an island they must come in by boat. In 2001, the government established a policy of intercepting all boats and transporting all illegals to an island in a neighboring country Papua New Guinea. The refugees have no means to leave the island so that this becomes a prison with no release in sight. Last year the government of Papua New Guinea ordered the closure of the immigration centers operated by Australia because of reports of bad treatment of the refugees. Since that time the Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull has been looking for a place to send these people. They will not allow these refugees to come into Australia to live because of their action of trying to enter the country illegally. Last September, Prime Minister Turnbull agreed to resettle Central American Hispanic refugees into Australia who were in a processing center in Costa Rica. He made it clear that this was a gesture of kindness from Australia and would not be a people swap.

In November of 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry worked out a deal with Australia to take about 1250 refugees that had been in Papua New Guinea and bring them to the United States. This action had the approval of President Obama. Prime Minister Turnbull was asked if he had the approval of President Elect Donald Trump to proceed with this exchange and he told them that the United States only had one President at a time and he had the approval of President Obama. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry were not able to get these people into the United States before President Trump was inaugurated.

Since the inauguration, Prime Minister Turnbull has called President Trump to schedule the transfer of these 1250 people to our country and he found that Australia did not have a legal agreement for this transfer. President Trump will not agree to take them. They are mostly Muslim men who have not been checked in any way and we know nothing about them. In order for the agreement to be legal, it would have required the approval of the Senate and Secretary Kerry had made no effort to get it approved. The news media quickly reported that there was a conflict between President Trump and the leader of Australia but Prime Minister Turnbull quickly told them that he now realizes that he did not have a legal agreement and he plans to keep a positive relationship with his main partner the United States. If this action had not taken place so late in President Obama’s term, these refugees would have come to our country and no one would have ever known the difference. It makes you wonder how many times actions like this took place and we never knew it.

Australia is one of our best allies. They are a democratic society dealing with a lot of the same problems that we deal with and they participate in many of the world’s policing activities that we also take part in. The population of Australia is very similar to that of the United States with most of the citizens earning their own living by working at public jobs. Although I have no numbers to make the point, I would expect that their citizens pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes. During my time traveling overseas, I met many people from Australia and found them to be happy, friendly and pleasant people.