US still processing refugee claims under Australia deal

WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department is continuing to review cases of would-be refugees held on a Pacific island by the Australian government, despite new confusion over the fate of an Obama-era agreement.

Gillian Christensen, a DHS spokeswoman, said Thursday the process to screen people being held on Nauru is ongoing. Earlier in the day Australia’s immigration minister said that processing had been halted.

Christensen said refugee applicants “will be interviewed and undergo security vetting consistent with the law, including any executive orders and court orders.”

President Donald Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program with an executive order that also banned immigration and travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. A federal judge in Washington state temporarily blocked the executive order last week. The government is appealing the case, but the order remains on hold for now and previously approved refugees have been arriving in the United States.

Late last year, the Obama administration agreed to review the cases of about 1,300 asylum seekers and the refuge requests of about 370 other people who came to Australia seeking medical treatment but then refused to leave for possible resettlement in the U.S.

The mostly Muslim immigrants are being held in camps on the Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Australia, which has been dealing with an influx of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty, won’t let them in and is instead paying for them to be held in the improvised island camps.

Trump has called the U.S.-Australian refugee agreement “dumb.”

Before Trump’s order was put on hold, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services postponed travel plans for officials tasked with interviewing refugee applicants around the world. A U.S. official briefed on the situation said that while interviews are not taking place right now, other parts of the screening process continue. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the situation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier Thursday, Australia Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said U.S. officials had stopped screening people being held on Nauru but would return to the island detention camp. He didn’t give a timeline for that return.

The State Department said, however, that the U.S. government would honour the agreement to consider some of the several hundred migrants held on Nauru for resettlement in the United States.

Trump has said they be subjected to “extreme vetting,” though the administration has not specified what that means.

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Associated Press Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

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Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap