US officials walk out of Australia-run Nauru detention centre
16 July 2017 5:32 PM GMT
The resettlement of refugees from an Australia-run detention centre on the Pacific island of Nauru as part of a deal with the US has been thrown into doubt after American officials interviewing detainees left the facility abruptly.
The officials halted screening interviews and departed the island on Friday, two weeks short of their scheduled timetable and a day after Washington said the US had reached its annual refugee intake cap.
"US [officials] were scheduled to be on Nauru until 26 July but they left on Friday," one refugee told Reuters, requesting anonymity as he did not want to jeopardise his application for resettlement. In the US, a senior member of the union that represents refugee officers at the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a Department of Homeland Security agency, told Reuters his own trip to Nauru was cancelled. Jason Marks, chief steward of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, told Reuters his trip had been pushed back – and it was unclear whether it would even take place. The USCIS did not respond to requests for comment.
On Saturday, the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, the USCIS said on Saturday that the program would continue but offered no details. "We do not discuss the exact dates of USCIS' circuit rides to adjudicate refugees' applications. However, we are planning return trips," the agency said in a statement. "It is not uncommon for the dates of tentatively-planned refugee circuit ride trips worldwide to change due to a wide variety of factors."
The Australian immigration department declined to comment on the whereabouts of the US officials.
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