How Australia built a wall (and paid for it)

SYDNEY — Call it Australia’s naval wall.

It’s not clear how much Donald Trump knows about how Australia treats refugees who arrive on its shores by boat. But the program would likely get his approval.

In the three-and-a-half years since the launch of Operation Sovereign Borders, the “Lucky Country” has turned back rickety vessels and detained asylum seekers offshore in harsh conditions on the Pacific island of Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. Refugees who arrive by sea are banned from ever settling in Australia — without exception.

Critics (and some proponents) of the system say it is brutal by design, providing those fleeing persecution with a cruel but effective deterrent. And it works: In 2013, 300 boats carrying 20,587 people made it to Australia. Just one year later, the number of boat-people dropped to 157. Since 2014, no boat has made it through.

“On moral and ethical grounds I would say it is wrong to take people who have committed no offense, and treat them so badly that they would prefer to face persecution instead,” said barrister Julian Burnside, who works pro bono with asylum seekers and campaigns against offshore detention. “But that’s the fundamental logic of it.”

The U.N.’s human rights committee ruled that the indefinite detention of refugees over security concerns breached international law.

Whether Australia’s hardline system breaks international law is a matter of heated debate in the country — and abroad.

Conditions in Australian-run detention camps are notoriously harsh. Reports of self harm, allegations of medical negligence, illness, suicide, rape, assaults at the hands of fellow asylum seekers, hostile locals and authorities are commonplace. Last year, the Guardian published 2,000 leaked incident reports from Nauru, which included allegations of a guard threatening to kill a child and another swapping sexual favors for extra shower time.

Australia’s leaders insist they abide by their obligations, but the United Nations and NGOs have differing views. In April 2016, the U.N.’s human rights committee ruled that the indefinite detention of refugees over security concerns breached international law and ordered the country to compensate five people who were detained for up to six years.

Members of the environmental group Greenpeace in front of the Opera House in Sydney | Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images

Also last year, the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) called for the immediate transfer of asylum seekers out of the Manus Island and Nauru processing centers, labeling them inhumane and “immensely harmful.” Amnesty International takes a similar view. “Amnesty disagrees with the government’s interpretation of our obligations under international humanitarian law,” said Australian spokeswoman Emma Bull.

Dumb and dumber

And the program comes at a cost. Australia, which in the ’90s considered itself something of a deputy regional peacekeeper to the United States’ global sheriff, has lost much of its humanitarian good standing at home and abroad. Faced with a flood of negative media reports quoting health care professionals about conditions in the processing centers, the Australian government threatened doctors and nurses with two-year prison sentences if they spoke out. (Authorities eventually caved into media pressure and amended the rules.)

And then there’s the monetary cost. Australia currently holds about 1,250 refugees in its offshore processing centers, who on average have spent 478 days in detention. While the government has not detailed the cost of the project, according to the Australian National Audit Office holding the refugees costs over €405,000 (close to $440,000) per person per year. By contrast, the Australian government estimates Syrian refugees who are allowed to settle in Australia as part of its humanitarian intake will cost it roughly €10,700 per person per year.

Australia, which has a population of 24 million, has pledged to settle 19,000 refugees a year on its shores, as long as they don’t arrive by boat.

Because Australia bans boat-arrivals from settling on its shores, those who are granted refugee status can either stay in detention, settle in the community on Manus or Nauru, or agree to move to a third country.

That leaves the country begging or bribing others to take refugees off its hands.

Enter the refugee resettlement arrangement struck in November with then U.S. President Barack Obama, which Trump described as a “dumb deal” on Twitter.

The agreement applies to refugees already on Nauru and Manus, plus those moved to Australia temporarily for medical treatment. They are eligible for a one-off resettlement in the U.S., subject to vetting by American authorities.

Indonesian villagers stand next to a lifeboat used by migrants turned back from Australian waters | STR/AFP via Getty Images

The deal was done off the back of another, struck in September by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at an invitation-only summit hosted by Obama. Under that arrangement, seen as something of an advance payment, Australia agreed to resettle Central American refugees from camps in Costa Rica and pledged over €92 million aid for displaced people around the world. (Australia, which has a population of 24 million, has pledged to settle 19,000 refugees a year on its shores, as long as they don’t arrive by boat.)

If the U.S. deal falls through, Australia will have to resort to its backup plan: Cambodia. Under a pact struck in 2014, Australia agreed to pay the nation around €40 million to resettle its refugees. Unfortunately, the agreement with Cambodia is truly — to borrow Trump’s phrase — a dumb deal. Three years after it was struck, only five refugees have agreed to go to the country, and just one has stayed there.