A hard-line Congressman from Texas predicts that President-Elect, Donald Trump will do everything he can to stop the immigrant refugee deal brokered between the US and Australia and that no resettlements from Nauru or Manus Island will ever take place.
The lengthy security vetting and slow progress made on applications by The Department of Homeland Security over two months after the resettlement deal was announced by Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull and outgoing US President Barack Obama, is causing those held in the immigration detention centers off the shore of Australia to fear it will not take place before Trump is sworn in as the next President of the US, on 20 January.
Brian Babin, a Texas Republican who has criticized the immigrant refugee resettlement policies pursued by President Obama, described the one-off deal with Australia as ‘madness’ and claims that it will be overturned by the incoming administration. Babin, a two-term Representative of the 36th Congressional district in the state, says all the planned resettlements facilitated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will be blocked by Trump due to safety and security risks for US citizens.
Babin told Fairfax Media that the deal should never have gone ahead, to begin with – being done without Congressional input and with the Obama administration having refused to share details on the immigrants and the deal with Congress. Babin noted that secret immigration deals such as this are exactly what were rejected by Americans in the recent election.