Peter Dutton says non-refugee Manus asylum-seekers to be sent home

Peter Dutton says any economic migrants on Manus Island will be forced to return to their country of origin.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has confirmed that any asylum-seekers on Manus Island found not to be refugees will be forced to return to their country of origin.

“There will be some who’ve been found not be refugees,’’he told 2GB Radio. “They are economic migrants essentially, not refugees by any stretch of the imagination, they have to go back home. They have to go back to their country of origin.”

Papua New Guinean and Australian governments are preparing to close the Manus Island detention centre by October 31, with the decommissioning of parts of the facility to begin within weeks.

Mr Dutton said under the deal with America, some eligible asylum-seekers found to be refugees will go to the US, and those refugees who are not given places will be allowed to stay in Papua New Guinea.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

‘The deal struck by [former Labor leader] Kevin Rudd and [PNG Prime Minister Peter] O’Neill meant that if people were found to be refugees then they would settle in PNG,” Mr Dutton said.

“We operate under the same arrangement ... so that is the arrangement and for a lot of refugees we’re hoping they will be eligible for the arrangement to go the United States, but that’s up to the US.”

The Australian government is yet to say how many of the 2000 people on Manus or Nauru would be eligible to resettle in the US under a deal clinched with the Obama administration and reluctantly accepted by Donald Trump.

Of the 850 men on Manus Island, about 400 have been found to be refugees.

On Tuesday, Mr Dutton said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s trip to the US where she will meet US UN Representative Nikki Haley would help the smooth passage of the deal.

“We have to make sure that we’ve got good relationships with NGOs as well as other countries. If we want to send people to the US, the deal that we arrived at between Prime Minister Turnbull and President Barack Obama and that’s now been honoured by Prime Minister … by President Trump, sorry, then we have to have good relations and the UN has been a part of that negotiating process with the US.” Mr Dutton told Five AA Radio.

“So that’s obviously part of the way that any developed country approaches any of these matters and Julie’s got important work to do in New York and I’m sure she’ll do it well on behalf of our country.’’