America and Australia Are on the Same Side of the Refugee Issue; They Should Stop Bickering and Fight the Real Problem Together

Sovereign nations decide all their governmental policies in ways that fit their political goals and are acceptable to their citizens. Australia has long had a policy that makes it extremely difficult for refugees or other migrants to enter their country or be settled in Australia. • • • AUSTRALIA'S REFUGEE POLICY. In August 2016, the BBC reviewed Australian asylum policy, which has come under intense scrutiny. According to the BBC : "Australia's humanitarian intake has remained relatively steady over the last 20 years, with around 12,000 to 13,000 people typically accepted every year. In 2015-16, Australia accepted 13,750 people through its humanitarian programme and has committed to accepting an additional 12,000 refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq. Asylum seekers have attempted to reach Australia on boats from Indonesia, often paying large sums of money to people smugglers. Hundreds have died making the dangerous journey." At its peak, 18,000 people arrived in Australia illegally by sea. • However, according to the BBC, the numbers plummeted after the government introduced tough new policies to "stop the boats." Australia's two leading political parties -- the Liberal-National coalition and the Labor Party -- both support tough asylum policies. They say the journey the asylum seekers make is dangerous and controlled by criminal gangs, and they have a duty to stop it. The BBC said : "The coalition government made Australia's asylum policy even tougher when it took power in 2013, introducing Operation Sovereign Borders, which put the military in control of asylum operations. Under this policy, military vessels patrol Australian waters and intercept migrant boats, towing them back to Indonesia or sending asylum seekers back in inflatable dinghies or lifeboats. The government says its policies have restored the integrity of its borders, and helped prevent deaths at sea. However, critics say opposition to asylum is often racially motivated and is damaging Australia's reputation." • When asylum seekers reach Australia by boat, they are not held in Australia while their claims are processed. Instead, they are sent to an offshore processing center. Currently, says the BBC, Australia has one center on the Pacific island nation of Nauru and another on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The BBC reports that : "Even if these asylum seekers are found to be refugees, they are not allowed to be settled in Australia. They may be settled in Nauru or Papua New Guinea, and four were settled in Cambodia at a reported cost of A$55 million (US$42 million). Rights group say conditions in the PNG and Nauru camps are totally inadequate, citing poor hygiene, cramped conditions, unrelenting heat and a lack of facilities....Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled in April that restricting the movement of asylum seekers who have committed no crime was unconstitutional. The country's prime minister has since demanded that Australia shut down the center. But Australia is not prepared to accept the 850 men held in the center and it is not clear where they will be taken....The likely closure of Manus Island means that asylum seekers could be relocated to Nauru, which says it has additional room. Or they could be taken to the Australian territory of Christmas Island, where there is an existing detention center. However, Australia's hard line on immigration is unlikely to change." • That was summer 2016. Today, thanks to the firm position of President Trump, we know where Australia's unwanted asylum seekers are NOT going. • • • TRUMP TELLS AUSTRALIA TO DEAL WITH ITS REFUGEES ITSELF. A phone call between US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has raised questions about a refugee resettlement deal made by President Barack Obama. The Washington Post reported that Trump called the conversation "the worst by far" of his calls with world leaders that day, and that he cut it short. President Trump later tweeted that he would "study this dumb deal" struck with the Obama administration that would see up to 1,250 asylum seekers to Australia resettled in the United States. Australia has controversially refused to accept the refugees -- and perhaps with good reason. And, it may also be the reason that President Trump will probably not take them. • Most of the asylum seekers being held on Nauru and Manus Island, PNG, are men from Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq -- and Prime Minister Turnbull had been seeking clarification on the future of the deal and assurance that it would be honored, after President Trump last Friday signed an executive order temporarily barring the entry into the US of refugees and people from seven Moslem-majority countries. In November, Australia announced that the US had agreed to a one-off deal to resettle refugees currently being held on Nauru and Manus Island, PNG. In return, Mr Turnbull's administration agreed to resettle refugees from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, would oversee the deal, with the "most vulnerable" to have priority, the Australian premier said at the time. While Turnbull gave no numbers, Australian Immigration Department Secretary Mike Pezzullo later told an Australian Senate inquiry that, while those who were eligible could express an interest, it was up to the US to decide how many people it wanted to take. A total of 1,254 people were being held in the two camps, 871 on Manus Island and 383 in Nauru, as of 30 November 2016, according to Australian government statistics. Their asylum applications have been processed and granted (about 80%) or not granted in PNG, not Australia, because of the ban on refugees who arrive by boat being allowed to land in Australia, under its tough deterrent policy. It has already made resettlement deals with Cambodia and PNG, but only a handful of refugees have been resettled. Critics say the two nations are completely ill-equipped to resettle refugees. • So the US deal was very positive for the Australian government, especially since it was made with a close political and military ally. Australia has faced fierce international criticism for its offshore detention policy and wants to close the Manus Island camp. Conditions in the offshore camps have been roundly condemned by rights groups, who say the policy is punitive and inflicts harm on refugees. • The phone call between Trump and Turnbull occurred on Saturday, and was one of four the President had with world leaders, including Russia's Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post quotes senior US officials, briefed on the call, as saying that the conversation should have lasted an hour but abruptly ended after 25 minutes by Mr Trump. On Thursday, President Trump brushed off reports of an unpleasant phone call, saying it was only right that he would need to have tough conversations with other world leaders : "The world is in trouble but we're gonna straighten it out... That's what I do, I fix things," Trump said, speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast meeting in Washington on Thursday morning. President Trump reportedly said accepting the refugees would be like the US accepting "the next Boston bombers." The official version of the call from the US was brief, but said both leaders had "emphasized the enduring strength and closeness of the US-Australia relationship." Turnbull expressed disappointment that details of the call that he described as "very frank and forthright" had been made public. He told a Sydney radio station that "the report that the President hung up is not correct." • • • MOST OF THE AUSTRALIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS ARE IRANIAN. All of the occupants of Manus Island are male. By far the largest number are from Iran, followed by Afghanistan and Iraq. There are also sizeable contingents from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar. The Nauru camp holds men, women and children. Again, the largest number come from Iran, followed by Sri Lanka and those who are stateless. Some of those being held have spent several years in the camps awaiting a decision. The Guardian reported that when President Trump talked with Trumbull and heard the details of the agreement reached with Obama, he balked. Late on Wednesday night, Trump tweeted : "Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!" While the media is focusing on Trump's calling the asylum seekers "illegal immigrants," it is clear that Obama made "a dumb deal." Trump’s pledge to “study” the agreement forced a public response from the Australian prime minister, who said publicly in an radio interview that he had a personal commitment from the President “confirmed several times now by the [US] government....We have a clear commitment from the President. We expect that the commitment will continue.” But a departmental source with knowledge of the deal acknowledged to thhe Guardian that : “It’s over. It can’t survive …it was never going to survive Trump’s immigration ban.” • • • DEAR READERS, President Trump’s fury over the Australian deal appeared to be mostly directed at the former president Barack Obama rather than Prime MinisterTurnbull. A report on Trump's weekend phone calls leaked and the npublished by the Washington Psot said the friction between the two leaders “reflected Trump’s anger over being bound by an agreement reached by the Obama administration to accept refugees from Australian detention sites even while Trump was issuing an executive order suspending such arrivals from elsewhere in the world.” On Manus Island, Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, a refugee who has been held in detention for more than three years, said Trump would humiliate Australia over the deal : “I wonder how Australian politicians do not see that Trump cannot accept the deal because it would hurt himself politically. He cannot because of ideological reasons. He is building a wall, how can he take the refugees from Australia?” • The Guardian stated : "It is not illegal to arrive in a foreign country without a visa or other documents in order to seek asylum : international law permits it, as does Australian domestic law. The vast majority of the people held on both of Australia’s offshore detention islands have been found to be refugees -- that is they have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland and they are legally owed protection. It is unlawful to forcibly return those people to their home country -- the principle of non-refoulement. So, without US help under President Trump, the problem of the asylum seekers stranded on Australia's neighbor island nations rests solely on Australia's shoulders -- where it should rest, as with every sovereign nation. The US deal was seen as a significant win for the Turnbull government, which has not found a sustainable plan for boat refugees. For three years, Australia has consistently maintained it will never settle asylum seekers on the Australian mainland that arrive by boat, a position that has been popular with voters and is still supported by both main parties. But, the policy has led to regular reports of human rights abuses, many of them well-documented. At the time of the US agreement in November [another midnight poisoned gift from Obama to Trump and America], only 24 refugees had resettled in PNG, and a handful in Cambodia. The Manus detention center had been declared illegal by the PNG supreme court, and Australia was under pressure over allegations on Nauru of sexual abuse of women and children, assaults of children, rape, widespread mental harm and epidemic rates of self-harm and suicide attempts. • President Trump rightly says he questions the purpose of the agreement, and suggests the number of refugees could increase to 2,000, if he agreed to honor an Obama-era plan to resettle 1,250 asylum seekers in the US : “For whatever reason, President Obama said that they were going to take probably well over a thousand illegal immigrants who were in prisons and they were going to bring them and take them into this country. And I just said why? Why are we doing this? We have to be treated fairly also, we have to be treated fairly.” • During remarks at a meeting with Harley Davison executives and union leaders, Trump said : “When you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having, don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it. They’re tough. We have to be tough. It’s time we have to be a little tough folks. We are taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore.” • Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr believes the highly charged telephone call between Trump and Turnbull is “healthy” for Australia. Carr, who served as Labor Minster for Foreign Affairs from March 2012 to September 2013, said Australia did not have a special relationship with American as many assumed, stating : “I could easily give you a list of 20 countries that hold that belief. America is the proud possessor of an alliance system, it’s one of the things that distinguishes the US and advantages it over any other contenders for global leadership. And it’s useful if Australians understand that Poland, for example, would regard itself as having every bit a special a relationship with the US as Australia. That Barack Obama on his farewell tour to Europe was talking about Germany as America’s most important partner in the world. In Britain, the Trans Atlantic Alliance is regarded as the apostles’ creed. We have to be practical about the alliance. It is not the only path of our international personality. And if this rude dismissal of the representations by an Australian PM altogether, legitimate representations, by President Trump serves to remind Australians of that great truth, then it’s a good and healthy thing.” • Philip Rucker, the Washington POost journalist who published the private phone conversation records, told Australian media that "President Trump “doesn’t really care” that Australia has been a long-term ally of the US, he is more concerned about his domestic refugee policy : “The thing you have to understand about Donald Trump is that he is not a natural diplomat, he is not a politician. He has a career in real estate, in business and deal-making, and he ran for President as somebody who was going to disrupt the world order....He was going to make changes and he was going to blow up the system, literally, and disrupt what he sees as a world order that is failing the world and making it more dangerous and less safe. And so he doesn’t really care so much that Australia is an ally over many, many years. What he cares about is the refugee policy that...he views as dangerous for the United States. So he didn’t let diplomatic niceties get in the way of how he felt about that refugee policy.” • Australian Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten told the media : “I think Mr Turnbull needs to confirm or deny the accuracy of that report. He made it clear that he had a constructive discussion and that the refugee deal, which Labor supports, was on track. But now it appears another different version of the same conversation has emerged. I just say to Mr Turnbull, ‘talk straight to the Australian people. Tell us what’s going on’.” • Australian federal treasurer Scott Morrison told radio host Ray Hadley that Donald Trump was doing exactly what he promised to do about migration and border control. Morrison has declined to criticize Donald Trump’s contentious travel ban, saying it is up to the United States to determine its border control arrangements, and noting the rest of the world is now “catching up” with Australia’s harsh deterrence policies. Morrison, a former immigration minister, suggested to Hadley that he empathized with President Trump, who is facing a fierce backlash against his controversial executive order banning travel to the US from seven Moslem-majority countries : “The rest of the world would love to have our borders and the way they are secured and the immigration arrangements we have put in place, particularly most recently, over the last three or four years. We’ve got a good history around this. Really, the rest of the world is catching up to Australia.” • Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has reportedly indicated Australia will support Donald Trump’s “strong immigration and border protection policies.” Bishop is auoted as saying : “The Australian government is working very closely with the administration and the US officials and we want to ensure that Australians continue to have access to the United States, as they have in the past, and people from the United States have access to Australia.” • Despite the tempest being stirred up by the media and Washington insiders such ad Senator John McCain, it would appear that the Australian government supports President Trump's position on the Trumbull-Obama is so far as it relates to Trump's election promise to secure America's borders and implement a tough immigration policy that prevents infiltration by jihadist terrorists. Australia has been doing much the same thing for years. Other countries should take heed, rather than attacking Trump for his honesty when speaking and his fearless effort to get the truth out for US citizens to evaluate. That is refreshing and badly needed if any semblance of trust is to be restored to the federal US government. As Mr. Lincoln pleaded with the secessionist Confederate states -- "We are not enemies. We cannot be enemies" -- it is now time for democratic nations and their leaders to rally together against jihadist terrorism and to quit posturing for the media's pleasure and advantage. It is the advantage of the world that must take the highest precedence. Starting with America and Australia -- who agree on the fundamentals of the problem.