For any of you who have followed or even remember the Australia “dumb deal” as Trump called it before honoring it, here is an update.
Australia had passed a law about a decade ago which said if anyone tried to break into the country by boat they would be put in offshore detention and not permitted to ask for asylum in Australia, so they ended up with thousands in detention.
Just as Obama was leaving office in late 2016 he promised to take those rejects off their hands, and so here we are now still doing it, although Biden is slow off the dime while Trump admitted 900.
Many Trump left behind are from Muslim countries on the so-called Muslim ban list. We did, however, admit many Rohingya Muslims Australia was rejecting.
They aren’t “refugees!” They are illegal aliens. It would be like us asking Australia to take a bunch of those aliens jumping our US border right now.
Almost 1000 refugees still in limbo as US deal approaches completion
The Morrison government is yet to find permanent homes for more than 900 refugees still in limbo after going through Australia’s offshore processing regimes in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, some of whom are entering their ninth year in detention.
The 2016 deal to resettle refugees in the United States, struck at the time by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and US President Barack Obama, has filled three quarters of its 1250-person cap.
There are hopes the US could expand the agreement – which Donald Trump honoured – after President Joe Biden increased the US’s annual refugee intake to 62,500 earlier this month.
[….]
To date, 940 refugees have been resettled in the US under the deal, including 34 this year. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre said another 258 refugees had been provisionally approved for resettlement but were still waiting to travel.
So says an advocate working to raise money for their needs.
Regular readers may remember that in 2016 Barack Obama (as he was wrapping up his 8 years as President) cut a deal with the then Australian Prime Minister to allow more than a thousand of Australia’s illegal aliens, who tried to break into the country by boat, to be brought to the US as legitimate refugees.
One group of the mostly single men are pictured en route to an American city.
Donald Trump knew instinctively that it was a dumb ‘deal,’ but went along with it anyway. You could hardly call it a deal because a deal implies we get something in exchange. News reports are mysteriously silent about what we got for taking the mostly Muslim men into our country.
If you want to catch up on the details, see my extensive file Australia Dumb Deal.
Here is an update of their arrivals in the US written by a journalist/advocate who leads a non-profit group to help take care of their needs through private charity—admirable if it is all private money.*** However, they are clearly advocates for more US taxpayer spending for so-called refugees that have nothing to do with Americans.
He fingers US refugee resettlement contractors for not doing their jobs!
As you read his story, remember that these ‘refugees’ tried to break into Australia by boat, were caught and detained under Australian law. Theychose to try to illegally enter Australia. They should not have been our problem!
It’s hard to imagine how the US-Australia refugee deal could have been handled worse
Four years ago then Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull struck a deal with then US president Barack Obama to transfer up to 1,250 of Australia’s unwanted refugees to the United States.
As we enter 2021 – despite US president Donald Trump’s condemnation of “this dumb deal” and a pandemic which has crippled the US resettlement system – the transfers continue. About 870 have arrived so far with more slated shortly.
After more than seven years in limbo, refugees will arrive with barely more than the clothes on their backs and they will be plunged into a collapsed economy, a rampant pandemic and a threadbare support system.
After touching down in Los Angeles, refugees are separated from each other and shuttled on to flights to cities from Phoenix to Philadelphia, San Antonio to Salt Lake City. Each will be handed a debt notice for their transfer flights – an absurdity that can total more than $11,000 for families with children.
US refugee policy does require the repayment of airfare ‘loans,’ but large amounts are never repaid. The State Department does not want to publicly reveal how bad the repayment rate is.
Winsor continues:
The new arrivals are offered just 90 days of accommodation and basic support. Then they’re on their own.
Abandoned by refugee resettlement contractors!
In theory, resettlement agencies are supposed to help with job applications, work authorisation and medical assistance in this period. But in reality, many refugees tell us they’re all but abandoned.
[….]
All of it is forced on refugees by the Australian government’s seven-year failure to resolve a crisis of its own making.
Almost all these refugees arrived in the days and months after the government’s sudden 2013 announcement that refugees arriving by boat would be barred from resettling in Australia – a deterrent which appears to have succeeded but has left thousands in limbo.
More than 40% of refugees tell Ads-Up they need assistance with medical care; another 40% request help with dental treatment. Inadequate healthcare on the islands means some arrive with easily treatable infections which have been left to fester undiagnosed.
[….]
Despite everything, most arrivals bear no ill will towards Australians.
They recall those who befriended them via Facebook when they were stranded, or who held vigils and protests. They are grateful to America, and even Trump, for giving them the chance to restart their lives.
*** I could not find a Form990 for Ads-Up. They say that Ads-Up (USA) is a recognised not-for-profit charity under the umbrella of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs network. Hmmmm!
President Donald Trump honored a deal, he called it dumb, that Barack Obama made with the Australian government just before leaving office in 2016. The deal was that the US would ‘welcome’ illegal aliens that have been held in Australian offshore detention camps.
The APis reporting that the US part of the deal is almost done and by spring 1,100 of the detained, mostly Muslim men, will be settled in unknown towns and cities in the US.
But, a deal implies we get something from it, right?
Supposedly Australia is taking asylum seekers from Honduras and El Salvador who have made their way to Costa Rica. Costa Rica! Why are they our problem???
Here is the rub, I could only find a story or two from 2017 about 30 Central Americans being flown from Costa Rica to Australia. There might be more somewhere, but the media isn’t reporting it.
So we are getting over a thousand, mostly single men, and Australia gets a handful of ‘refugees’ that were already safe in Costa Rica!
Australia: Most of 1,100 refugees in US deal have resettled
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The United States is expected to have resettled more than 1,100 refugees by early next year under a deal President Donald Trump reluctantly honored with Australia, an Australian official said on Monday.
“New Americans” waiting for their ticket to your town!
President Barack Obama’s administration struck a deal in 2016 to accept up to 1,250 refugees from Iran, Bangladesh, Somalia and Myanmar whom Australia had banished to Pacific island camps.
Trump condemned the deal as “dumb” but agreed to honor the U.S. commitment, subject to “extreme vetting” of the refugees.
The United States has resettled 870 refugees since October 2017 and around 250 more have received provisional approval to make new homes in the United States, Home Affairs Department deputy secretary Marc Ablong told an Australian Senate committee.
While resettlement had been disrupted in recent months by the pandemic, Ablong said Australia expected the last of the refugees accepted by the United States to be resettled by March or April.
The resettlement deal “is operating very effectively to date,” Ablong said.
[….]
New Zealand’s offer to take 150 refugees a year has been refused while the United States continues to accept them.
[….]
Some see the U.S. resettlement deal as repayment for Australia agreeing to accept Honduran and Salvadoran refugees under a U.S.-led resettlement program from a camp in Costa Rica.
Other than an article or so in 2017, I have never seen the media report exactly how many Central Americans were sent to Australia from Costa Rica to ‘honor’ our part of the deal.
But, I repeat, why are Central Americans who are safe in a safe country, Costa Rica, our problem in the first place?
The US Refugee Admissions Program is not dead yet as the refugee industry fears it soon will be—see myprevious post.
For new readers, I’m too lazy to give you a full background report on the subject of Australia’s rejects—migrants who attempted to break into Australia were placed in detention centers on offshore locations. Their fate was, and is, Australia’s responsibility, yet Obama promised Australia we would take hundreds of them to live in your towns and cities.
Trump, much to my shock, agreed to honor the Obama deal. You can go through my “Dumb deal” archive by clicking here.
On Friday we learned that nine more are on the way bringing Trump’s welcome to over 400 so far. By the way, these are mostly young men who have spent years in detention camps.
“It’s an absolutely brutal time to be arriving in America.”
(Ben Winsor, co-founder of Ads-Up a group that is helping them get settled)
A couple of those who arrived previously are infected with the Chinese virus and others have no jobs. So it makes sense that more are coming?
Sure why not! You can’t travel safely! You may be jobless. And, the virus is costing trillions of taxpayer dollars so what the heck, a few more mouths to feed shouldn’t matter, right!
Dozens of refugees flown from Australia and PNG to US despite coronavirus travel bans
Dozens of refugees who have spent years in Australia’s offshore processing regime have been flown to the United States for resettlement, despite COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Transfers from Papua New Guinea and Australian immigration detention centres under the US resettlement program are continuing as the US struggles to contain the pandemic that has killed more than 93,000 people there.
Thirty-five refugees departed Port Moresby on Thursday morning bound for the US via Singapore,and one refugee is due to fly to Finland, according to sources and documents obtained by SBS News.
A handful also departed Australia for the US this week, including several from the Kangaroo Point hotel being used as an “alternative place of detention” (APOD) in Brisbane and from community detention in Melbourne.
[….]
The men are due to arrive in Los Angeles and then be resettled in 18 cities across the US.
[….]
“It’s an absolutely brutal time to be arriving in America,” Ben Winsor, co-founder of Ads-Up, told SBS News.
“These guys are landing with barely more than the clothes on their backs and they’ll be looking for work alongside millions of recently unemployed Americans.
“Since COVID-19 hit, more than 100 refugees reached out to us for help, they’ve lost jobs and are struggling to pay rent and for basic supplies.
“Refugee resettlement agencies were already overstretched and providing only very basic support, now they’re at breaking point.”
Many of the refugees have underlying health conditions after years of detention and medical neglect on Manus Island and Nauru.
“Their condition puts them at higher risk from COVID-19,” Mr Winsor said.
“We are in daily contact with two refugees in Texas who have contracted COVID-19.”
[….]
In Senate estimates in March, the Home Affairs Department said 702 refugees had been resettled in the US under the agreement reached by then Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and US president Barack Obama in 2016. [Trump called it a “dumb deal” but went along with it!—ed]
Under the deal, up to 1,250 refugees who were in offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru could be resettled in the US at its discretion after clearing “extreme vetting” procedures.
The department said a further 260 were approved but had not yet departed, and some were transferred to Australia under the now-repealed medevac laws for medical treatment.
Our government is interviewing more of Australia’s illegal aliens who will soon be on the way!
Yet, I haven’t heard one word recently about Australia’s part of that deal.They are supposed to take in refugees from Costa Rica and that begs the question, why are those refugees our problem?
In exchange for the US considering to resettle 1,250 refugees from Australia’s offshore camps, Australia has agreed to take refugees from US-run refugee camps in Costa Rica.
See my ever-expanding archive on the Australia dumb deal byclicking here.
The whole thing is maddening!
I wonder how many Australians were planning dream vacations to America or conversely how many Americans had been planning to travel to Australia for work or pleasure and have been forced to cancel their plans, yet, these unhealthy young men who tried to break into Australia are flown to the US and resettled on your dime!
And, as we learned in the SBSstory, no quarantine is required for them!
