The not-so-great 12,000-mile refugee swap
Edy Purnomo/Getty I’m mystified by the announcement today that the Australian and American governments have reached deal to swap up to 200 refugees every year. Under the plan, asylum seekers to Australia under detention who are deemed to be genuine refugees will be resettled in the United States. In return, the United States will be ...
Edy Purnomo/Getty
I’m mystified by the announcement today that the Australian and American governments have reached deal to swap up to 200 refugees every year. Under the plan, asylum seekers to Australia under detention who are deemed to be genuine refugees will be resettled in the United States. In return, the United States will be able to relocate Cuban and Haitian refugees, currently being held at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, to Australia. So what’s the point of this scheme? The theory is that settling refugees in “faraway” places will deter human traffickers and illegal immigrants from targeting the United States and Australia specifically.
I still don’t get it. The plan could easily backfire. As Tony Burke, the immigration spokesman for the opposition Labor Party in Australia emphasized,
If you are in one of the refugee camps around the world, there is no more attractive destination than to think you can get a ticket to the USA…. What [Australian Prime Minister] John Howard is doing is saying to the people around the world: if you want to get to the US, the way to it is to hop on a boat and go to Christmas Island.”
Second, the whole idea seems pointless in any case. Almost 85 percent of asylum seekers to Australia are ultimately found to be genuine refugees, and are therefore entitled to protection under international law. Many have already fled across thousands of miles, so it’s highly doubtful they would be deterred by the thought of ending up 12,000 miles across the planet. After all, it’s not like they’d end up in North Korea. And finally, as Jillian Bradford of Australia’s ABC asks, “How much is this going to cost? It seems an extraordinar[il]y expensive way of resettling refugees.” Indeed.
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