It is only 3, but their arrival tells us that all refugee resettlement to America has not stopped and that the Obama “dumb deal” to take Australia’s rejected asylum seekers who have been held in offshore detention for years is still on-going.
According to BuzzFeedreporter Hannah Ryan the three new arrivals went to Maryland, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.
The US, Struggling Under The Pressure Of The Coronavirus, Is Still Taking Refugees From Australia
Three refugees flew from immigration detention in Australia to start new lives in the United States this week, despite the coronavirus pandemic placing a chokehold on international resettlement.
Coming to a town near you! Trump called it a “dumb deal” but his Administration is carrying it out anyway.
The men, two from Sudan and one from Pakistan, jetted together from Melbourne through Qatar to the US, where they parted ways before reaching their final destinations of Tennessee, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The US took them under the refugee swap deal between the two countries.
The flights went ahead despite a global pause on refugee resettlements announced by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in mid-March. The US also suspended its refugee program because of the coronavirus on March 19, with the exception of emergency cases.
The ongoing operation of the resettlement program in the US leaves refugees in Australia and its offshore detention camps who have been accepted under the program with an invidious choice: to stay in detention, where many have been for the past seven years, or start a new life in the US as it is ravaged by a deadly pandemic.
I haven’t seen much news lately about the “dumb deal” that Obama made to admit over a thousand asylum seekers that Australia had been holding for years in offshore detention camps, until this story from Saturday.
Of course, even as President Trump described the deal as a “dumb” one, he went along with it supposedly with extreme vetting determining who we would admit and who we would reject.
This story from theBrisbane Times is mostly about how one Rohingya escaped the detention camp and ultimately made it to Canada where he was granted asylum.
There is a bit at the end updating readers on where the number being sent to your US towns and cities stands today.
‘Never heard of anything like this’: Advocates stunned by Manus escape
Toronto, Canada: Refugee advocates have described a Rohingya asylum seeker’s escape from Australia’s offshore processing centre on Manus Island, and successful resettlement in Canada, as unprecedented and extraordinary.
Jaivet Ealom, 27, has spoken publicly for the first time about his high-risk and secretive journey to freedom in a series of interviews with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in Canada.
[….]
Political activist who used social media to pressure the Australian government, Iranian Behrouz Boochani, has permission to come to America as a refugee.
The department said 699 refugees have been resettled in America under the deal with the US government while another 26 have been resettled in other countries.
In November, Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani, author of the award-winning No Friend But the Mountains, travelled from PNG to New Zealand for a literary festival and overstayed his visa.
He said he had been offered resettlement in the US but was also open to resettlement in a third country.
Meet the Aussie Expats Fighting to Give Asylum Seekers A Fair Go
When entrepreneur and former fashion designer Fleur Wood heard that 1250 asylum seekers from Australia’s off-shore detention centres were being resettled in the US, she was struck with empathy.
It was 2016 and the men, women and children who had spent years languishing on Nauru and Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island would now be transferred to a country on the other side of the world as part of a deal between the Australian government and the Obama administration. After so much uncertainty and despair, this was their chance to start over – but not without enormous challenges.
[….]
Wood began building a network of Australians living in the US who were keen to help out, and in 2018 she co-founded the not-for-profit Ads-Up (Aussie Diaspora Steps Up) with fellow Australian Ben Winsor.
Their aim was to do what the Australian government would not: provide a social network and financial assistance to help refugees begin their lives in a new country.
[….]
For volunteers, connecting with refugees provides a chance to make amends in some small way for Australia’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers. Says Wood, “Regardless of where you stand on the immigration issue, or whether you think these people should be allowed into Australia, you can’t deny the incredible human rights violations that they have suffered.”
The Australian government doesn’t provide regular information about Nauru and Manus Island, but according to the Refugee Council of Australia, 632 people have been resettled in the US.
[….]
Last June, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the target of resettling 1250 refugees wouldn’t be met, hindering the Coalition’s goal of closing down the detention centres. US President Donald Trump was also famously scathing of the deal.
But Trump went along with the deal for over 600 detainees (so far) that Australia would not allow on its own soil. 600 plus is just as “dumb” as 1,250 in my view.
The practice of taking another (safe) country’s rejects is outside the normal accepted international resettlement procedure and should never have been encouraged.
One of the reasons I’m glad to be back writing at the newly reconstructed RRWis because I’ve missed writing about some of my favorite players on the world stage—the ones who get it!
Former Aussie PM Tony Abbott and Hungarian PM Viktor Orban at a conference on migrants swarming Europe in Budapest last week.
The Guardian is sniffing about the audacity of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban holding a conference in which the discussion was about “migrants swarming Europe” in order to change it, to wipe out western civilization.
A key speaker at the event was former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott (see all of my previous posts on Abbott by clicking here.)
Tony Abbott attacks migrants ‘swarming’ to Europe while praising far-right PM of Hungary
The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has praised the far-right prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, and warned a conference in Europe about “military age” male immigrants “swarming” the continent.
How to enrage the Leftists! Tell them the truth!Meghan and Harry can make a statement about only having two children to save the planet. But, how about telling that to Africans and to Muslims who encourage their people to have six or more children and aren’t going to stop procreating to save the planet when the goal is to conquer it! (I’m guessing British Imams are laughing their heads off!)
In a speech that praised the central European country’s race-based immigration and population policies, Abbott also criticised Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, for remarks that they would not have more than two children owing to the effects on the environment – saying it would make little difference “when so many children are being born elsewhere”.
The former leader of Australia, a staunch conservative who was ousted as prime minister by his centre-right Liberal party in 2015, was a guest of honour at a Hungarian government-backed summit on demography in Budapest on Thursday. He gave a lecture on what European countries could learn from Australian immigration policy.
He said the left was attempting to undermine western society with migration and the “climate cult”.
[….]
“The problem with the people who have been swarming across the borders in Europe in very recent times is that you don’t get any impression that they come to join. You get the impression they come to change.
I’d call this swarming, wouldn’t you?
“I mean … you get a million angry military-age males swarming into a single country in a year. They are not there to be grateful, they are there with a grievance. And people who come with a grievance are very different to people who come with gratitude in their hearts.
“There is an absolute moral world of difference between people who cross a border to be safe, and people who cross multiple borders to have a better life. No one can blame them for wanting a better life but nobody has a duty to give it to them unconditionally and with no questions asked.”
On Harry and Meghan, Abbott said: “Having fewer children in western countries will hardly make the climate better when so many children are being born elsewhere.”
This is another in my ever-expanding archive about that Obama “dumb deal” (honored by President Trump) to take 1,250 of Australia’s detained illegal aliens to the US as refugees.
Readers need to know that this whole scheme is outside the normal internationally understood process for dealing with asylum seekers and economic migrants. Simply put:
Australia’s illegal aliens are not our problem!
Do we expect Australia to take some of those crossing our borders illegally now—of course not. It would never happen.
Several hundred of the mostly single Muslim men have already been quietly placed in your towns and cities. See here.
Prospective ‘New Americans’ were apprehended over five years ago attempting to break in to Australia. They have been in detention ever since.
Thanks to reader ‘Father Jon‘ for alerting us to this jaw-dropping bit of news.
A total of 71 asylum seekers on Nauru have turned down the chance to move to the US after discovering they would need to work and wouldn’t get free welfare.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claimed those who who rejected the move were not ‘genuine’ refugees.
Mr Dutton claimed their reluctance to take up the opportunity proved they were simply economic migrants trying to take advantage of generous welfare systems.
He told The Daily Telegraph: ‘People who have refused to take a place in the US are not genuine.
‘Millions of refugees have gone to the US and may have died trying because it’s one of the greatest countries in the world.
‘Reports have come back to people on Nauru it’s all a bit financially tight there because you have to get a job and there’s no welfare there.’
First, of course, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees blames Australia, but our President is criticized for not taking more of Australia’s illegal aliens to America causing them to want to kill themselves.
I sure hope the President has learned his lesson. You can never be nice with these no borders pushers and their media sycophants.
Remember when he arrived in the White House and quickly agreed (pending extreme vetting) to take 1,250 of Australian asylum seekers, housed in camps on Manus and Nauru islands, in an Obama deal he dubbed a “dumb deal.”
418 of the mostly Muslim men detained by Australia are already in a US town near you.
Here we are, just short of two years and we have placed in your American town 418 of the mostly Muslim migrants who tried to break in to Australia by boat about six or so years ago.
Australia had taken a hard line against illegal alien border crashers and denied entry to the mainland to anyone breaking in by boat. They were placed in offshore detention. Needless to say, the policy stopped the boat traffic!
Those mostly Muslim men have been in offshore detention ever since. Well, except for 418 who are now free in America.
UN refugee agency calls for mass evacuation of asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus
The United Nations refugee agency has joined calls for immediate evacuation of the remaining 1400 refugees and asylum seekers stranded on Nauru and Manus Island, citing a “collapsing health situation”.
The UNHCR’s appeal to the Australian government to end offshore processing follows warnings from global humanitarian body Médecins Sans Frontières about the “absolutely devastating” situation as dozens of refugees are knocked back for resettlement in the United States under President Donald Trump’s “extreme vetting”.
“Australia remains responsible under international law for those who have sought its protection,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Catherine Stubberfield.
Trump, only weeks after taking office, told then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that it was a “dumb deal” but went ahead with it anyway.
“In the context of deteriorating health and reduced medical care, Australia must now act to prevent further tragedy to those forcibly transferred under its so-called ‘offshore processing’ policy. UNHCR renews its call for refugees and asylum-seekers to be moved immediately to Australia, where they can receive adequate support and care.”
You can’t win Donald!
A deal negotiated with former US president Barack Obama to resettle up to 1250 refugees has been hampered by Mr Trump’s hardline immigration stance. According to the Department of Home Affairs, 418 people have now been accepted for resettlement under the deal. Médecins Sans Frontières said the rejections were causing people to become “extremely hopeless”.
The federal government has refused calls for the refugees to be brought to Australia or be resettled in New Zealand, arguing that doing so would risk people smugglers restarting their trade. Refugees can also accept resettlement in Papua New Guinea or a 20-year visa to live in Nauru.
See my extensive file on the ‘Australia deal’ by clicking here. Obama made the deal with the Aussies as he was headed out the door in 2016.
Not our problem!
You might also want to visit my post from just the other day about how we are taking ‘refugees’ (really asylum seekers not even designated refugees yet) off the hands of countries that are safe countries in a process that is clearly stretching international norms on how resettlement is supposed to work.
