That is the news this morning from The National.
Why does that matter to us? Because some of those rioting and refusing to be moved to another processing center could end up in your town in America.
Two days ago it was a different story. From the Times of Malta:
Look at the video (in the story) and consider this, some of these men may be flown to America to be quietly placed in your town by the US State Department and its contractors.***
And, check it out, how do detainees have fully-charged phones to be able to film this and tweet to the world. They think (so they say) that if they step out of the door of the closed facility the locals will attack them.
Papua New Guinea authorities have ratcheted up pressure on more than 300 asylum seekers to abandon a decommissioned immigration camp, where refugees reported their shelters, beds and other belongings had been destroyed.
Police Chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas said 50 police and immigration officials entered the Manus Island camp on Thursday morning and persuaded 35 of the 378 men there to leave for alternative accommodation in the nearby town of Lorengau.
Water, power and food supplies ended when the Manus camp officially closed on October 31, following the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court’s ruling last year that Australia’s policy of housing asylum seekers there was unconstitutional.
But asylum seekers say they fear for their safety in Lorengau because of threats from local residents.
Kakas said force would not be used to empty the squalid Manus Island camp.
“There’s no raid. It’s an ongoing negotiation with the refugees,” Kakas told The Associated Press. “It’s not an eviction exercise. We’re telling them to move because there’s water, food and proper shelter on the other side.”
[….]
Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam tweeted that police had arrested Iranian refugee and journalist Behrouz Boochan.
Boochan had earlier tweeted: “They are destroying everything. Shelters, tanks, beds and all of our belongings.”
[….]
Australia pays Papua New Guinea, its nearest neighbour, and the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru to hold thousands of asylum seekers from Africa, the Middle East and Asia who have attempted to reach Australian shores by boat since mid-2013.
Not mentioned in the text that accompanies the video, is this near the end: New Zealand has offered to take some of the detainees but Australia declined the offer.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that the priority is the existing refugee swap deal with the US.
Go back and look at that video and consider that some of these men will be living in your town because Donald Trump said he will honor the unorthodox deal the Obama Administration made with Australia as Obama was walking out the door in late 2016.
BTW, that story from The National I linked above says 24 of the DETAINEES have already arrived in America, but that doesn’t fit the number we had heard previously—-we heard 50 have arrived of the possible 1,250.
See my complete archive on the ‘Australia deal’ by clicking here. And for all of my posts on Australia, go here.
If you have never told the White House what you think about the Obama/Trump “dumb deal” with Australia, take a few minutes and do it (here).
***These are the nine major US taxpayer-funded NGOs responsible for (secretly) placing refugees in hundreds of American towns.
- Church World Service (CWS)
- Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) (secular)
- Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM)
- Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
- International Rescue Committee (IRC) (secular)
- US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) (secular)
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS)
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
- World Relief Corporation (WR)