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Trump's tweet leaves Turnbull with no option but to bring the refugees here

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Last Sunday a teenage boy, feeling trapped and hopeless, attempted to end his own life by hanging himself in a detention centre on Nauru. The Iranian born refugee was reacting to US President Donald Trump's executive order, which authorises a temporary travel ban against seven Muslim dominated countries, including Iran, and a suspension of the US refugee program. The teenager, who has spent more than three years of his short life on Nauru, feared that he would never be able to leave the island because the executive order would jeopardise a deal brokered by Australia with the previous Obama administration for the resettlement of refugees from Nauru and Manus Island in the United States.

Since the ban there have been confusing and conflicting messages from the Australian government and the White House on their fate. While the Australian government has attempted to reassure the public that the US will honour the resettlement deal, a tweet from the US President sent on Wednesday night DC time all but confirmed that the deal was in danger.

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The US President has taken to Twitter, this time revealing his thoughts on Australia's refugee deal as PM Malcolm Turnbull assures us, the agreement is still in play. Courtesy 2GB.

Even if the deal is to be honoured, there is confusion about what it will in fact achieve. The agreement between Australia and the US does not commit the US to taking any refugees. It simply requires that the United States allow refugees to express an interest in being resettled there. That is, even if the US deal was to go ahead, it may not result in any concrete outcomes for the men, women and children trapped on Nauru and Manus Island.

The refugee deal has had a significant impact on Australia's approach to the United States. In contrast with numerous world leaders, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has declined to criticise President Trump's executive order, presumably for fear that such criticism may threaten the refugee resettlement deal. This deal therefore, that may achieve little, is costing Australia its international reputation and Malcolm Turnbull his credibility.

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Australia does not, of course, need this deal. Every single refugee and asylum seeker currently held in Nauru or Manus Island can be brought to Australia tomorrow if the Turnbull government would allow it. Resettling refugees selected, transferred, detained, paid for and overseen by Australia in Nauru and Manus Island would give Australia back its voice and its ability to stand up for the values held by Australians including racial tolerance and abhorrence for discrimination. It would also spare the refugees from being at the whim of an at times erratic US administration and months if not years of further waiting.

Sadly, despair of the kind witnessed in the teenage boy on Nauru after the signing of the executive order is not a rare sight on the embattled islands. Refugees, stripped of hope, subjected to documented sexual and physical abuse by those entrusted with their care and living in fear have little to hold on to.If the Australian government believes that these refugees, who have been vetted and have passed security checks, will not pose a threat for the United States, then there is no reason why they should not be resettled in Australia instead.

Turnbull's desperate attempt to secure this deal shows that he may understand the importance of getting the refugees out of where they are. Nothing is stopping us from offering the men, women and children Australia has held on Nauru and Manus a home and a future in Australia. There is no evidence that the resettlement of refugees in the US is any more of a deterrent for future boat arrivals than resettlement in Australia. The continuation of a policy that keeps vulnerable individuals on islands far from Australia despite the known harm to them is a travesty. The US-Australia deal is now little more than a distraction from what we know we must do. We do not need the United States to take people we are responsible for. We can and should resettle the Nauruan and Manus refugees ourselves.

Azadeh Dastyari is a senior lecturer in the faculty of law at Monash University.

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