Refugee swap still on, but ‘some will miss out’

Peter Dutton says some asylum-seekers will miss out on the US swap.

Peter Dutton says some on Manus Island and Nauru will miss out on the US deal. Picture: Kym Smith

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton says asylum-seekers undergoing extreme vetting by US officials on Manus Island and Nauru are “engaging very well” with the process — but conceded some would be excluded from the refugee deal.

Thanking US Vice-President Mike Pence for reaffirming America’s commitment to the agreement, Mr Dutton said there was no evidence officials had slowed the screening methods or applied stricter standards to those found to be genuine refugees.

In February, the minister said he expected the first refugee intake­ to be resettled in the US “in the next couple of months”.

Mr Pence’s weekend visit was interpreted as a “full-throated commitment to the alliance” by Donald Trump, after a rocky start when the US President called the refugee deal “dumb”.

“I was very grateful to Vice- President Pence, I met him yesterday,” Mr Dutton told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“He’s echoed the words of President Trump. It was a deal that they inherited from the Obama administration, and they weren’t happy about the detail of the deal, but given the nature of the relationship they honour the deal and we’re very grateful for it.”

Former US ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich said the reassurance that Mr Trump would “honour the agreement”, despite not “admiring” it, was very important for the relationship.

“With other countries it can be a little more like the way businesses treat one other, at arm’s length,” he told Sky News’s Sunday Agenda program.

“When you’re talking about alli­ances, this is more like a marriage. No one keeps score on indiv­idual things — ‘what did I do for you this week and what do you owe me next week?’.

“For a marriage to work, there has to be a sense of trust and confid­ence and continuity and predictability.

“That I think is something that was expressed by the Vice-President here.”

However, Mr Dutton, who has said Australia would not accept refugees from Costa Rica until the US accepted those on Manus and Nauru, conceded there would be some in the offshore detention centres who would miss out.

“There are many people on Manus Island, as is the case on Nauru, who have been found not to be refugees. These are people, for example, from Iran,” he said.