Trump refugee ban: Nauru resettlement deal with Australia could be saved

In a phone call he is understood to have assured Malcolm Turnbull the resettlement deal will go ahead despite his crackdown.

Donald Trump has told Malcolm Turnbull that the US will honour a deal to resettle refugees from Australia’s offshore detention centres in a phone conversation between the two leaders this morning.

Amid uproar over the new President’s executive order banning refugees from entering the United States, The Australian understands that the Prime Minister has been given assurances from Mr Trump that the refugee deal struck last year will go ahead.

However, in the pair’s first conversation since Mr Trump was sworn in last week, the two leaders acknowledged a common interest in preventing irregular and illegal migration to their respective countries.

In the 25-minute conversation, the two men also discussed the longstanding strength of the bilateral relationship between the US and Australia and committed to making it even stronger.

The ongoing shared objective to defeat Islamic State was discussed and both leaders committed to continuing to work together to improve global instability, including in the Asia-Pacific.

“Both leaders emphasized the enduring strength and closeness of the US-Australia relationship that is critical for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia- Pacific region and globally,” the White House said in a statement.

The President’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon and national security adviser Mike Flynn were in attendance at the Oval Office.

The pair spoke this morning after Mr Trump had talked with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Prime Minister was hoping to confirm the Nauru refugee resettlement deal between Australia and the US in the call, after Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown announced yesterday.

Despite claims that the deal would be jettisoned by Mr Trump as he vows to slash the number of refugees into the US, his executive order signed over the weekend allows for “case by case” assessments by the State Department to honour pre-existing international agreements.

Mr Trump’s executive order to suspend and limit the American refugee program, which has been seized upon by some as evidence the Australia-US deal was dead, allows for pre-existing arrangements to be continued.

Clause 5 (e) states that “Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their

discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest — including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution, when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a pre-existing international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship — and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.”

Australian government sources pointed to this clause as a positive sign that the one-off agreement for refugees from on Manus Island and Nauru to be resettled in the US would stick.

Immigration and Border Security Minister Peter Dutton would not comment on the executive order and its reference to pre-existing deals.

“The government has entered into a unique arrangement with the United States which reflects the depth of our relationship on many fronts,” he said.

“We look forward to working with President Trump, his administration, and in particular Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly, on this issue and many others of shared interest in the years ahead.

“We will continue to work with our friends in the United States on the arrangement but will not provide a running commentary through the media.”

Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale said Mr Turnbull must take a stand against the refugee ban.

“We have got to make a choice, we are either a lap dog to the US and fall in behind them no matter what they do... or we take a stand and we recognise there has to be a line drawn around what are moral issues,” Senator Di Natale told Sky News.

Trump talks to world leaders

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Mr Trump spoke about co-operating in Syria to defeat Islamic State.

The two men, in their first phone call since the inauguration, also stressed the importance of restoring economic ties between the two countries and of stabilising relations, the Kremlin said.

There was no mention in the Kremlin statement that the issue of easing Western sanctions on Moscow imposed over the Ukraine conflict had been mentioned in the call.

The Kremlin said the men would maintain “regular personal contact” and begin preparations for a face-to-face meeting.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Trump discussed conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine and agreed on the importance of NATO during their first call, according to joint statement by Merkel’s office.

After speaking with Chancellor Merkel for 45 minutes @POTUS is now onto his 3rd of 5 head of government calls, speaking w Russian Pres Putin pic.twitter.com/RPAWIgcO2C

— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 28, 2017

Additional reporting: AAP, AP, Reuters

TRUMP ORDER: THE DETAIL

Donald Trump signed an executive order ON Friday making major changes to America’s policies on refugees and immigration.

SYRIA: Trump’s order directs the State Department to stop issuing visas to Syrian nationals and halts the processing of Syrian refugees. That will remain in effect until Trump determines that enough security changes have been made to ensure that would-be terrorists can’t exploit weaknesses in the current vetting system.

REFUGEES: Trump ordered a four-month suspension of America’s broader refugee program. The suspension is intended to provide time to review how refugees are vetted before they are allowed to resettle in the US.

Trump’s order also cuts the number of refugees the US plans to accept this budget year by more than half, to 50,000 people from around the world. During the last budget year the U.S. accepted 84,995 refugees, including 12,587 people from Syria. President Barack Obama had set the current refugee limit at 110,000.

The temporary halt to refugee admissions does include exceptions for people claiming religious persecution, so long as their religion is a minority faith in their country. That could apply to Christians from Muslim-majority countries.

EXTREME VETTING: Trump’s order did not spell out specifically what additional steps he wants to see the Homeland Security and State departments add to the country’s vetting system for refugees. Instead he directed officials to the review the refugee application and approval process to find any other security measures that can be added to prevent people who pose a threat from using the refugee program. During the Obama administration, vetting for refugees included in-person interviews overseas, where they provided biographical details about themselves, including their families, friendships, social or political activities, employment, phone numbers, email accounts and more. They also provided biometric information, including fingerprints. Syrians were subject to additional, classified controls that administration officials at the time declined to describe, and processing for that group routinely took years to complete.

OTHER IMMIGRATION: Trump’s executive order suspends all immigration from countries with terrorism concerns for 90 days. The State Department said the three-month ban in the directive applied to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen - all Muslim-majority nations. The order also calls for Homeland Security and State department officials, along with the director of national intelligence, to review what information the government needs to fully vet would-be visitors and come up with a list of countries that don’t provide it. The order says the government will give countries 60 days to start providing the information or citizens from those countries will be barred from traveling to the United States.

GREEN CARDS: The temporary ban extends to foreigners with visas and people with green cards. Anyone who was abroad when the executive order was signed is now barred from coming back to the country for at least three months. There is an exemption for people whose entry into the country is deemed in the nation’s interest, but it’s unclear how that exemption may be applied.

Barring any travel to the US from those seven countries, even temporarily, appears to at least partially fulfill a campaign promise Trump made to ban Muslims from coming to the US until assurances can be made that visitors are properly vetted.

AP