Howard's Swap policy already bears 'sour fruits'

Howard's Foolish US Swap policy already bears 'sour immigration fruits'

"The Immigration policy where Australia would send a number of its "unwashed and unwanted" asylum seekers seeking legitimate protection in Australia to the USA, in return for receiving Haitians and Cubans from the USA is already coming back to haunt John Howard indirectly, and it will rapidly result in the US cancelling this foolish deal," WA Rights group Project SafeCom predicted today.

Haitian AAP reporters state today (full report below), just after dozens of Haitians drowned, that "An exodus may already be happening. The US Coast Guard intercepted or rescued 704 Haitians trying to reach the United States by sea in April, compared to just five in March. That is almost as many in one month as the 769 Haitians the Coast Guard stopped at sea in all of 2006".

"This foolish policy proposal by the Prime Minister and Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews always was ridiculous, and now it really shows how laughable it was," spokesman Jack H Smit said.

"The Prime Minister has shown himself clearly as someone who lacks the political nause and intellect in this misery refugee policy saga. His greatest and most manipulative political moment may well have been the stubborn refusal to let refugees into Australia at the time of the Tampa standoff, but the Prime Minister has long lost the plot," Mr Smit said.

"Well, on this occasion Project SafeCom has some sound and frank advice for the Prime Minister and for the Immigration Minister: 'Nothing will work better than an open, generous, welcoming attitude to those who seek protection and who arrive without an appointment - a policy in line with what Australia promised under its UN Convention Obligations'."

"If the Prime Minister introduced that as a wedge, he may well start on a track towards winning the 2007 federal election," Mr Smit concluded.

ENDS

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