US delays asylum seeker interviews
SYDNEY: United States immigration officials have postponed interviews with asylum seekers in an Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru since President Trump’s executive order on immigration, suggesting Washington is already blocking progress on a controversial refugee resettlement deal.
The deal sparked a rare diplomatic spat between the two staunch allies, with Trump berating Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in an angry phone call that led to quick moves in Washington to reaffirm the strength of the relationship.
Asylum seekers on Nauru who are applying to settle in the United States under the refugee swap deal, agreed in the final months of Barack Obama’s presidency late last year, said that planned secondround interview dates with visiting US officials had been postponed indefinitely.
Under the deal, the United States would take up to 1250 asylum seekers. In return, Australia would take refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
More than a dozen asylum seekers on both Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, site of another Australian offshore detention camp, said they were afraid for their future since Trump said ‘‘extreme vetting’’ would be used and after his testy phone call with Mr Turnbull.
‘‘We are deeply concerned about the US deal,’’ Imran Mohammad (22), a stateless man from the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar, said by telephone from Manus Island.
‘‘We don’t know what to believe and the uncertainty is getting worse and worse,’’ he said.
‘‘It is killing us inside every day.’’
There are about 1200 refugees, mostly single men, being held at Australian processing camps on Manus Island and Nauru in conditions that have been harshly criticised by the United Nations and human rights agencies.
The Australian government, which maintains a strict policy of not allowing anyone who tries to reach the country by boat to settle here, has never detailed the nationalities of the detainees, but refugee advocates say most are from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan. — Reuters
❛ It is killing us inside every day❜
— Rohingya refugee Imran
Mohammad (22)