U.S. will resettle Australia’s refugees languishing on islands

CANBERRA, Australia — The United States has agreed to resettle an unspecified number of refugees languishing in Pacific island camps in a deal that is expected to inspire more asylum seekers to attempt to reach Australia by boat, officials said Sunday.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would not say whether he had discussed the deal with President-elect Donald Trump during their telephone conversation Thursday. The Obama administration had agreed to resettle refugees among almost 1,300 asylum seekers held at Australia’s expense on the island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

“We deal with one administration at a time, and there is only one president of the United States at a time,” Turnbull told reporters, adding that the deal was reached “some time ago.”

Trump has called for a moratorium or tight restrictions on Muslim immigration. Most of the asylum seekers are Muslims from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Australia refuses to resettle any refugee who has arrived by boat since the date the tough policy was announced July 19, 2013.

Australia pays Nauru and Papua New Guinea to house boat arrivals and has been searching for countries that will resettle them.

Few refugees have accepted offers to resettle in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia because most hope that Australia eventually will take them in.

Turnbull said the United States only had agreed to resettle refugees already on Nauru and Papua New Guinea, not refugees who arrive in the future.

“We anticipate that people smugglers will seek to use this agreement as a marketing opportunity to tempt vulnerable people onto these perilous sea journeys,” Turnbull said.

No people smuggling operation has delivered asylum seekers to Australia by boat since July 2014, but 29 boats have been turned back to Indonesia.