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posted by
janrinok
on Friday February 03 2017, @05:05AM
from the should-have-had-it-in-writing dept.
from the should-have-had-it-in-writing dept.
The AAP via the Herald Sun (News Corp) reports on a deal between the Australian government and the former U.S. administration. Under the arrangement, people seeking asylum in Australia—who have, controversially, been detained in centres on Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea—would have been resettled in the United States. However, according to the story, the plan is now in question due to the change in leadership there.
According to The Guardian , "the U.S. could resettle zero refugees from Manus Island and Nauru and still be 'honouring' the deal."
related story:
Manus Island Centre Deemed Illegal; Detainees Seek Compensation
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Australian Government Asks U.S. to Take Detainees
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revolutionary, adj.:
Repackaged.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03 2017, @07:17AM
Here is a WILD idea. Send them home?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday February 03 2017, @08:27AM
That would not be fair.
All that money given to criminal smuggling of human being went to waste?
Try sending money to known criminals, see how fast you get the penal code thrown at you. Yet they can. The system is bent on collapsing on itself, probably because the next iteration of the system is ready.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Myfyr on Friday February 03 2017, @09:14AM
That is what the Australian government has been doing whenever they can. The problem with this group of refugees is that they have all been found to be genuine seekers of asylum who would be in danger if they were returned to their home country. Therefore, as signatories to the human rights convention, Australia cannot legally return them home. So they have been desperately trying to find anywhere else who is willing (and legally able) to take them.
New Zealand offered to take 150 refugees, I believe, but Australia refused. I don't know whether it was because New Zealand wanted to deal with Australia directly (rather than Nauru or Manus Island), or because New Zealand isn't far enough away. Either way, it isn't a good look that Australia turned around and made a deal with the US just a few months later. Especially given that the conditions in the detention camps are bad enough that the government won't let journalists in, and placed a gag order on the staff, including doctors.
Of course, they could just be be resettled in Australia, but the government argues that doing so would increase the "pull factor" for further refugees who would then be in danger of drowning at sea during the attempt (there were a number of large tragedies a few years back). The cynical would say that that is just a cover for doing what they wanted to do anyway, due to the political climate. I have not seen any good explanation of why the deal with America wasn't going to increase the pull factor (at least any more that settling them in Australia would), and there was certainly no big influx of refugees after the deal was announced...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 03 2017, @03:11PM
Australia has a huge arid region inland. Many (most?) of these asylum seekers come from arid regions. Bus those people into the interior, and see how they get on with the aboriginals. It could be helluva good thing - or it could be helluva bad thing. But, the US has been kicking the can down the road (immigration reform) for half a century - Oz can probably get away with the same thing.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Saturday February 04 2017, @03:23AM
Bus those people into the interior, and see how they get on with the aboriginals.
First of all, not that many Aboriginals survived to this day [wikipedia.org] for yet another cruel experiment. What had the Aboriginals done to you to wish them such a fate?
Secondly, how would you keep the migrants constrained to a specific territory? There is transportation. You dump them in Great Victoria desert, and the next day they are drinking beer in Sydney. This is why the refugees are kept in other countries, in camps. Once they are free in Australia, the horse has bolted. You have to accept them as they are, in their entirety, before letting them immigrate.
(Score: 1) by Myfyr on Saturday February 04 2017, @10:23AM
Funnily enough, there are multiple deeply rural towns crying out for any refugees willing to live in the bush to be allowed to settle there. These are towns that have been trying to literally give houses away to entice people to come - they are slowly dying as the younger generation moves to the city, because there's just no real money in family scale farming anymore.
And many of the refugees would jump at the chance. Hard work in a peaceful rural setting is miles better than anything some of them (maybe not academics fleeing persecution etc., but there are plenty of asylum seekers with less comfortable backgrounds) have ever experienced. Win-win.
No interest from the government though (either major party). They're all terrified of being called "soft on terror", or the optics of disasters at sea. Cowards.