I’ve lost track of how many posts I’ve written on a refugee swap deal that Obama (and Anne Richard) engineered in the closing months of the Obama administration that would bring over 1,000 rejected ‘refugees’ to your towns in the coming months. (See archive here)
These are mostly men illegal aliens who, with the help of people smugglers, tried to reach Australia by boat, but were intercepted and taken to detention facilities where they have protested, rioted, and occasionally set fire to their living facilities.
This week, as it looks like their admission to the US is stalled, efforts were being made to move some of them to another facility until violence and protests erupted.
The detainees say they won’t be safe if moved. It is unclear to me (and apparently the NYT too) who exactly would attempt to harm them as they wait to see if they hit the jackpot with a airplane ticket to America.
From the New York Times:
Hundreds of refugees and migrants living in limbo on a remote Pacific island refused Tuesday to vacate the detention facility where they have been held for years, the latest protest of their treatment under Australia’s offshore detention program.
The protest was a response to cuts to water and electricity to parts of the facility on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, where 800 men were still being held since attempting to reach Australia by boat.
The Australian authorities want the refugees to move to a new site; the protesters say they are being aggressively relocated and denied protection.
[….]
East Lorengau Refugee Transit Center, the new facility on Manus Island, is intended to temporarily house refugees awaiting resettlement. Those who are not considered refugees will be returned to their home countries.
These are men being considered by the Trump State Department to be your new neighbors!
The police commander on Manus, David Yapu, told the New Zealand news outlet Radio NZ that minor confrontations between the protesters and police officers had occurred in recent days.
“There was tension. We decided to withdraw,” Mr. Yapu said, saying his officers pulled back from the compound where the protest happened. “But our men are still there just to assist, to move the refugees from the Foxtrot compound.”
[….]
Most of the men on Manus Island have been formally recognized as refugees, but Australia refuses to allow them to be resettled.
The Obama administration had agreed to resettle hundreds of the refugees from Manus and Nauru, but this year President Trump questioned that decision.
He later confirmed he would follow through on the commitment for the one-time resettlement agreement after “extreme vetting” of the refugees, but it is unclear when this will take place.
Trump v. Turnbull phone call transcript leaked.
Remember, as I told you here, the reason these mostly men from Muslim countries are not being admitted to the mainland of Australia (when we are told repeatedly that they are legit refugees) is that Australia has a policy of never admitting anyone who tried to break into the country by boat.
We get that, and it is a good deterrent, but why is your US city or town to be punished with their US taxpayer-supported placement?
Does anyone really think these men, who have learned from the Leftwing how to protest, are going to quietly go to work for BIG MEAT OR BIG CHICKEN?
(BTW, did anyone tell those detainees that they would come to America and be expected to do this kind of manual labor?)
Now we have the snarky Washington Post suggesting that Trump didn’t ‘get it’ (doesn’t understand the refugee program) when he discussed the swap in January with Prime Minister Turnbull. Trump got it and understood intuitively that it is a DUMB deal.
WaPo:
We’ve known for a while that President Trump berated Australia’s prime minister on a Jan. 28 phone call; The Washington Post reported on it back then.
What we didn’t know then was how little Trump understood the policy that was discussed on the call.
According to a transcript of the call unearthed by The Post’s Greg Miller, the deal to resettle refugees was actually brought up first on the call by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who wanted assurance that the U.S. government would stand by its commitment in light of Trump’s stance on other refugees. After some discussion of the Islamic State and Christian refugees more generally, Turnbull says, “This is a very big issue for us, particularly domestically, and I do understand you are inclined to a different point of view than the vice president.”
[This is revealing, so Pence was already talking to Turnbull about the refugee swap deal, sooner than eight days after the inauguration?—ed]
Trump then starts the back-and-forth by noting that someone had just described the deal to him. But then he uses inaccurate numbers: “Somebody told me yesterday that close to 2,000 people are coming who are really probably troublesome.”
The reporter shows his ignorance (and bias!) because it wasn’t until recently that the target number discussed (to be admitted to your towns) is in the range of 1,250. Back when Trump talked to Turnbull we know that it was close to 2,000 as noted by Senator Grassley, here. Grassley reported in November that the number being considered is CLASSIFIED.
Continue reading the WaPo here as reporter (Aaron Blake) twists himself into a pretzel trying to make Trump look foolish. I think it is clear Trump understood exactly why Turnbull was so desperate for a deal!
For new readers, know this: