Manus Island asylum seekers not approved to resettle in the USA could be declared illegal aliens by Papua New Guinea and deported — possibly back to Australia — a local politician claimed.
Former MP for Manus Island, Ron Knight, told The Huffington Post Australia he was planning to lead a local movement against plans to resettle potentially hundreds of rejected asylum seekers in the wider Manus community.
“It’s not PNG’s problem, it’s an Australian problem,” said Knight, a member of the opposition in PNG’s parliament.
Under an agreement struck last year, the U.S. government will take an as-yet-unknown number of asylum seekers and refugees who were sent to Australian-run regional processing centres on Manus Island and Nauru.
This is the agreement President Donald Trump called a “dumb deal” and “the worst deal ever”, and the cause of a reported shouted phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in February. But just this weekend, U.S. vice president Mike Pence told reporters in Sydney that the deal was still on.
Source: Manus Asylum Seekers May Be Deported ‘Back To Australia’, Local MP Says
No comments:
Post a Comment