Turnbull confident Australia-US refugee swap despite Trump tightening up on immigration

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Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: EPA

Published: 2:19pm, 28 Jan 2017

The Turnbull government is pinning hopes for its US refugee deal on a potential loophole buried deep within Donald Trump’s controversial anti-Muslim executive order.

The US president’s latest executive order has closed the nation’s borders to refugees, suspending entry for 120 days and targeting Syrians with an indefinite ban.

Declaring the measures were aimed at keeping “radical Islamic terrorists” out of the US, Trump also suspended all immigration from seven predominantly Muslim nations and established a religious test that will give Christians in Muslim countries visa priority.

It had been feared the new policy would scuttle the refugee deal the government struck with the Obama administration, which is aimed at resettling hundred of refugees – most of them from the countries banned by Trump – from Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

But the government is taking hope from a section of the US order that appears to provide a loophole.

It says the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security have the discretion to admit people on a “case-by-case” basis, specifically giving scope for exceptions that would “enable the United States to conform its conduct to a pre-existing international agreement”.