BREAKING NEWS

US to apply 'extreme vetting' in refugee swap deal with Australia

By REUTERS

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 07:07

SYDNEY, Feb 1 - The United States will apply "extreme vetting" to up to 1,250 asylum seekers it has agreed to resettle as part of a deal with Australia, a spokesman for President Trump said in the United States on Tuesday.

Washington agreed on a deal late last year to resettle asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, held in Australia's processing centers on remote Pacific islands in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Under the deal, Australia would in return resettle refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Providing details of the plan for the first time, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the deal covered many of the refugees held in the two offshore processing centers, although they must satisfy recently tightened immigration policies.

"The deal specifically deals with 1,250 people that are mostly in Papua New Guinea being held," Spicer told reporters in Washington.

"Part of the deal is that they have to be vetted in the same manner that we're doing now. There will be extreme vetting applied to all of them," he said.

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