SYDNEY — Amid the drama over a refugee resettlement deal between Australia and the United States, the White House has issued a series of conflicting statements on whether the agreement is still on, how many refugees it involves, and who, exactly, are the refugees. A look at what’s at stake.

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. agreed to resettle a group of refugees who are being held at detention camps on the impoverished Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

The Australian government pays both countries to house the refugees, because it refuses to settle any of them in Australia. That has resulted in many of them languishing inside the detention facilities for years. The conditions at the camps are grim and reports of detainees suffering abuse and attempting suicide are frequent.

UNCLEAR HOW MANY ARE GENUINE REFUGEES

President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the refugees as “illegal immigrants” and said in a tweet that there are “thousands” of them. The refugees are, in fact, among around 1,250 asylum seekers who were transferred to the island detention centers after being intercepted while trying to reach Australia by boat.

Another 370 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands are also eligible for resettlement to the United States. Australia will not say how many of the asylum seekers have been deemed genuine refugees, and thus it’s unclear exactly how many refugees the U.S. agreed to ultimately accept.

Most of the asylum seekers come from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Australia’s previous center-left government called them “irregular maritime arrivals,” because a refugee can legally seek asylum in a country such as Australia that is a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention — which calls on nations to take in people fleeing war.

The current conservative government changed the terminology to “illegal maritime arrivals,” presumably because people smuggling is illegal and most pay people smugglers to ferry them to Australia.

Asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat generally travel to Indonesia, where people smugglers jam them into overcrowded, barely seaworthy vessels that then head south to Australia.

In 2013, Australia imposed tough policies toward asylum seekers in a bid to discourage the dangerous and often deadly journeys. Under the strict rules, any asylum seeker who tries to reach Australia by boat can never be settled in Australia, and is instead sent to the detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea where their refugee claims are assessed. Prior to the U.S. deal, the only option given to those deemed genuine refugees was for them to resettle in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia.

Few refugees have accepted those offers, opting instead to remain in detention in the hopes that Australia will eventually take them in.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Trump had a tense telephone call in which they discussed the agreement.

On Monday, Turnbull told Australians that Trump had vowed during the call to honor the deal. But a report from The Washington Post that subsequently emerged suggested the agreement might be in doubt.

The newspaper reported that during the call, Trump ranted to Turnbull that it was “the worst deal ever.” Shortly after that report was published, Trump took to Twitter to slam the agreement as “dumb” and said he would review it. Meanwhile, the State Department offered reassurance that the agreement would, in fact, stand — “out of respect for close ties to our Australian ally and friend.”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer also confirmed that Trump had agreed to honor the deal, though he said all the refugees would be subjected to “extreme vetting.”

Later, Trump told reporters that he has to “respect” actions of the previous administration, yet quickly added: “But you can also say, ‘Why are we doing this?'”

Spicer then gave another press conference in which he said that Trump was “unbelievably disappointed” in the agreement and had “agreed to continue to review that deal.”

On Thursday, a Trump administration official described the president as “very strong” in the phone call with Turnbull and said it had ended early, after about 30 minutes.

But on Friday, Trump tweeted, “Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!”

The Associated Press wrote this report</s>Australia still plans to honor an agreement to accept refugees from Central America, even in the face of President Trump's high profile hesitation to take a group of refugees off Australian hands.

"Australia will participate in a multilateral program to resettle refugees from Central America," Nicole Chant, a spokeswoman for the Australian ministry of Immigration and Border Protection, told the Washington Examiner in an emailed statement. "It's expected that Australia will be referred a small number of people for resettlement and they will be resettled within the existing Humanitarian Program."

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull agreed in September to resettle Central American refugees who were living in a Costa Rican camp, supported by the United States. Soon after, then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States would accept about 1,200 Middle Eastern refugees who had fled to Australia.

The deal led Turnbull's opponents to accuse him of planning a "people swap" with the Obama administration, but Turnbull denied any quid pro quo arrangement.

"We are encouraging all countries to work with [the UN refugee agency], as we are going to on this subject that you've just asked about, to find a durable solution for these refugees," Kerry told reporters at the time. "And that was a key focus of the leaders' summit that took place in New York in September, and my sense is that we're reaching an understanding of how we may be able to deal with it."

The agreement also frustrated congressional Republicans, who protested that President Obama had classified the terms of the deal for no good reason. "[C]lassification of an agreement regarding individuals to be considered for admission by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is unprecedented," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote in a letter to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security in December.

Trump famously complained about the deal in a phone call last week with Turnbull, saying that following through on the agreement would expose the United States to the "next Boston bombers." Trump also said that he would "get killed" politically for accepting the refugees, according to a leaked transcript published by the Washington Post. "This is the worst deal ever," he said.

Kerry's statement seemed to imply that the American and Australian refugee agreements were developed at the same summit. Turnbull's government avoided any hints of backing out of their deal, although they have not yet processed the Central American refugees.

"People are yet to be referred for resettlement in third countries, including Australia, under the arrangement," Chant said.

Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Asia-Pacific region, said he hasn't heard any threats that Australia would reject the Central American refugees. He predicted that Trump would subject the refugees that Kerry promised to take to 'strict vetting" procedures and ultimately allow them into the country.

"I think it's important," Yoho told the Washington Examiner .</s>SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Saturday that a controversial refugee resettlement deal with the United States would go ahead, despite U.S. immigration officials postponing interviews with asylum seekers.

An undated handout image supplied by Amnesty International claiming to show the view of inside the living quarters at the country's Australian-run detention centre on the Pacific island nation of Nauru. Amnesty International/Handout via REUTERS

Reuters reported on Friday that U.S. officials had pulled planned second-round interviews with detainees in an Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru, suggesting Washington is already blocking progress on a controversial refugee resettlement deal.

Detainees and an official source said interview dates were pulled on Saturday, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that suspended the U.S. refugee program for 120 days and stopped visits by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Bishop said both countries were still working through the details of the agreement, which sparked a rare diplomatic spat between the two staunch allies, with Trump berating Australia’s prime minister in an angry phone call.

“The agreement is to be honored by the Trump administration (so) I’m pleased this agreement will continue,” Bishop told reporters in Western Australia.

“We remain in contact with the Trump administration and our embassy in Washington is also working with U.S. officials and we expect that vetting process would be as tough as Australia’s vetting process in terms of health and security checks,” she added.

Bishop said “my understanding is that interviewing and vetting is still taking place”, without providing any further details.

Several detainees on Nauru showed Reuters the canceled interview dates in their online applications, while a source said the second-round interviews had been postponed while officials tried to work out what was meant by the “extreme vetting” announced by the White House.

Under the refugee swap deal, agreed in the final months of Barack Obama’s presidency late last year, the United States would take up to 1,250 asylum seekers. In return, Australia would take refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

Trump has begrudgingly said he planned to stand by the deal, but described it on Twitter as “dumb”.

The White House has yet to determine and make public what an extreme vetting process would entail, but detainees and their advocates are concerned it would effectively rule out all the eligible detainees.

Thousands of protesters rallied across Australia on Saturday condemning Trump’s executive order and demanding an end to Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers.

A U.S. federal judge on Friday put a nationwide block on Trump’s order, although his administration could still have the policy put back into effect on appeal.</s>FILE - In this May 12, 2013, file photo, Iranian refugees who were caught in Indonesian waters while sailing to Australia sit on a boat at Benoa port in Bali, Indonesia. Amid the drama over a refugee resettlement deal between Australia and the United States, the White House has issued a series of conflicting statements on whether the agreement is still on, how many refugees it involves, and who, exactly, are the refugees. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati, File)

SYDNEY (AP) — Amid the drama over a refugee resettlement deal between Australia and the United States, the White House has issued a series of conflicting statements on whether the agreement is still on, how many refugees it involves, and who, exactly, are the refugees. A look at what's at stake:

Under the Obama administration, the U.S. agreed to resettle a group of refugees who are being held at detention camps on the impoverished Pacific island nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Australian government pays both countries to house the refugees, because it refuses to settle any of them in Australia. That has resulted in many of them languishing inside the detention facilities for years. The conditions at the camps are grim and reports of detainees suffering abuse and attempting suicide are frequent.

UNCLEAR HOW MANY ARE GENUINE REFUGEES

President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the refugees as "illegal immigrants" and said in a tweet that there are "thousands" of them. The refugees are, in fact, among around 1,250 asylum seekers who were transferred to the island detention centers after being intercepted while trying to reach Australia by boat. Another 370 who came to Australia for medical treatment and then refused to return to the islands are also eligible for resettlement to the United States. Australia will not say how many of the asylum seekers have been deemed genuine refugees, and thus it's unclear exactly how many refugees the U.S. agreed to ultimately accept. Most of the asylum seekers come from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Australia's previous center-left government called them "irregular maritime arrivals," because a refugee can legally seek asylum in a country such as Australia that is a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention — which calls on nations to take in people fleeing war. The current conservative government changed the terminology to "illegal maritime arrivals," presumably because people smuggling is illegal and most pay people smugglers to ferry them to Australia.

Asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by boat generally travel to Indonesia, where people smugglers jam them into overcrowded, barely seaworthy vessels that then head south to Australia. In 2013, Australia imposed tough policies toward asylum seekers in a bid to discourage the dangerous and often deadly journeys. Under the strict rules, any asylum seeker who tries to reach Australia by boat can never be settled in Australia, and is instead sent to the detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea where their refugee claims are assessed. Prior to the U.S. deal, the only option given to those deemed genuine refugees was for them to resettle in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia. Few refugees have accepted those offers, opting instead to remain in detention in the hopes that Australia will eventually take them in.

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Trump had a tense telephone call in which they discussed the agreement. On Monday, Turnbull told Australians that Trump had vowed during the call to honor the deal. But a report from The Washington Post that subsequently emerged suggested the agreement might be in doubt. The newspaper reported that during the call, Trump ranted to Turnbull that it was "the worst deal ever." Shortly after that report was published, Trump took to Twitter to slam the agreement as "dumb" and said he would review it. Meanwhile, the State Department offered reassurance that the agreement would, in fact, stand — "out of respect for close ties to our Australian ally and friend." White House spokesman Sean Spicer also confirmed that Trump had agreed to honor the deal, though he said all the refugees would be subjected to "extreme vetting." Later, Trump told reporters that he has to "respect" actions of the previous administration, yet quickly added: "But you can also say, 'Why are we doing this?'" Spicer then gave another press conference in which he said that Trump was "unbelievably disappointed" in the agreement and had "agreed to continue to review that deal."</s>The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has denied reports that the US has delayed interviews with detainees on Nauru, amid lingering uncertainty over whether America will honour a refugee settlement deal.

Detainees applying to settle in America under the deal had reportedly had their planned second-round interview dates with US officials postponed indefinitely, Reuters reported. But Bishop told reporters while on the election trail in Western Australia on Saturday that she understood interviewing and vetting was still taking place.

“The agreement is to be honoured by the Trump administration [so] I’m pleased this agreement will continue,” she told the ABC.

Confusion around exactly what the US president, Donald Trump, meant in saying the refugees would be subject to “extreme vetting” was the reason behind postponing the interviews, according to an unnamed source in the Reuters report. Trump described the refugee agreement as a “dumb deal” in a tweet.

Under the settlement deal, the US will take refugees currently held on Manus Island and Nauru in return for Australia accepting refugees from Central America.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, earlier said authorities were working to get refugees off Manus Island and Nauru as quickly as possible but it was a “difficult juggling act”.

“We are keen to get people off there as quickly as possible ... we’ve got unfinished business,” he told 2GB radio on Friday. “There’s a long way to go before we can get people off.”

Australian officials have been working with US counterparts to look at the individual cases of those held in immigration detention, Dutton said.

On Saturday hundreds of protesters rallied in Sydney against Trump’s immigration restrictions and Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers.

The crowd just shy of 1000 people marched from Hyde Park to the US embassy at Martin Place, according to organiser Ian Rintoul, as similar rallies were held in Canberra, Hobart and Newcastle.

Rintoul said they protested against Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers and its refugee-swap deal with the US, as well as Trump’s executive order blocking travellers from seven countries. The order was on Saturday subject to a temporary restraining order after a ruling from a US federal judge.

Rintoul said protesters wanted refugees in offshore detention at Nauru and Manus Island to be brought to Australia. He said that even if Australia’s refugee-swap agreement with the US did proceed, it wouldn’t provide for all the refugees at Nauru and Manus Island.</s>Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says US officials are continuing to interview asylum seekers in Nauru as part of the refugee deal with America, despite lingering uncertainty over the agreement.

Reuters has reported interviews on Nauru had been suspended because US officials were uncertain about what security checks were going to be imposed on refugees under the agreement.

But Ms Bishop denied there had been a pause.

"The agreement is to be honoured by the Trump administration [so] I'm pleased this agreement will continue."

A US Government source also told the ABC officials were pushing ahead with implementing the deal.

But US President Donald Trump's executive order cracking down on refugees has caused uncertainty and slowed down the approvals process.

Mr Trump also publicly denounced the deal and labelled it "dumb" after clashing with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the issue.

Still, the Coalition was convinced Mr Trump's furious denunciations of the agreement were aimed at a domestic audience, and that he would not abandon it completely.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer again fielded questions about the deal during his daily briefing, and said the Trump administration would honour the agreement "in some way".

"We are going to continue to work through this. We are going to honour these commitments in some way, meaning we are going to vet these people in accordance with the agreement that happened," Mr Spicer said.

The White House had previously said any refugees accepted would be subjected to "extreme vetting" before being allowed into the United States.

But officials in both Australia and the US were uncertain about exactly what "extreme vetting" meant and unsure about exactly what additional security checks would be required.

US vetting process expected to be 'tough'

The Foreign Minister said both countries were still working through the details of the agreement.

"We remain in contact with the Trump administration and our embassy in Washington is also working with US officials and we expect that vetting process would be as tough as Australia's vetting process in terms of health and security checks," Ms Bishop said.

Refugee advocates said the persistent uncertainty over the deal was causing enormous anxiety on Manus Island and Nauru — and is doing further psychological damage to refugees on both islands.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten criticised the Government's handling of the deal, but today said Labor would back the Government "100 per cent" as it worked to get refugees to the US.

"I am completely supportive of the Government's efforts to see the refugee deal honoured with the United States," he said.

"I take what the Prime Minister said, that the deal will be honoured — Labor supports this full stop."</s>U.S. immigration officials have postponed interviews with asylum seekers in an Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru since President Trump's executive order on immigration, suggesting Washington is already blocking progress on a controversial refugee resettlement deal.</s>SYDNEY
• US immigration officials have postponed interviews with asylum seekers in an Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru since President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration.

This suggests Washington is already blocking progress on a controversial refugee resettlement deal.

Asylum seekers on Nauru who are applying to settle in the US under a refugee swop deal said that planned second-round interview dates with visiting US officials had been postponed indefinitely.

The deal had been agreed in the final months of Mr Barack Obama's presidency late last year. Under the deal, the US would take up to 1,250 asylum seekers. In return, Australia would take refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

More than a dozen asylum seekers on both Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea - the site of another Australian offshore camp - said they were afraid for their future since Mr Trump said that "extreme vetting" would be used, and after his testy phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Mr Imran Mohammad, 22, a stateless man from the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar, said from Manus Island: "We don't know what to believe and the uncertainty is getting worse and worse. It is killing us inside every day."

There are around 1,200 refugees, mostly single men, being held at Australian processing camps on Manus Island and Nauru in conditions that have been harshly criticised by the United Nations and human rights agencies.

Australia, which maintains a strict policy of not allowing anyone who tries to reach the country by boat to settle here, has never detailed the nationalities of the detainees, but refugee advocates say most are from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.</s>SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. immigration officials have postponed interviews with asylum seekers in an Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru since President Trump's executive order on immigration, suggesting Washington is already blocking progress on a controversial refugee resettlement deal.

The deal sparked a rare diplomatic spat between the two staunch allies, with Trump berating Australia's prime minister in an angry phone call that led to quick moves in Washington to reaffirm the strength of the relationship.

Asylum seekers on Nauru who are applying to settle in the United States under the refugee swap deal, agreed in the final months of Barack Obama's presidency late last year, told Reuters that planned second-round interview dates with visiting U.S. officials had been postponed indefinitely.

Under the deal, the United States would take up to 1,250 asylum seekers. In return, Australia would take refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

More than a dozen asylum seekers on both Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, site of another Australian offshore detention camp, told Reuters they were afraid for their future since Trump said "extreme vetting" would be used and after his testy phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

"We are deeply concerned about the U.S. deal," Imran Mohammad, 22, a stateless man from the Rohingya ethnic minority in Myanmar, told Reuters by telephone from Manus Island.

"We don't know what to believe and the uncertainty is getting worse and worse," he said. "It is killing us inside every day."

There are around 1,200 refugees, mostly single men, being held at Australian processing camps on Manus Island and Nauru in conditions that have been harshly criticized by the United Nations and human rights agencies.

The Australian government, which maintains a strict policy of not allowing anyone who tries to reach the country by boat to settle here, has never detailed the nationalities of the detainees but refugee advocates say most are from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan.

Trump's executive order last week suspended the U.S. refugee program for 120 days and stopped visits by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days.

Trump has begrudgingly said he planned to stand by the deal, but described it on Twitter as "dumb". Also on Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley called on Trump's administration to make the details of the deal public, noting it was made without Congressional approval.

An official source with knowledge of the process said confusion around exactly what "extreme vetting" would mean was the reason asylum seeker interviews by officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) were postponed.

"The CIS team stage has been postponed as they seek clarification on what information is needed under extreme vetting," the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media, told Reuters.

"The feeling is that they didn’t want to conduct the interviews and then find out they needed to do the process again," she said.

The U.S. State Department did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the postponed interviews, which had been scheduled between Friday and Feb. 21, or whether the U.S. team would travel to Manus island as expected later this month.

The White House is yet to determine and make public what an extreme vetting process would entail, but detainees and their advocates are concerned it would effectively rule out all the eligible detainees.

It has proved almost impossible to determine what Trump means by extreme vetting.

Some refugee advocates fear it will entail medical background checks as well as strict security assessments. They say many of the internees suffer mental illnesses after spending years in the camps. Harsh conditions and reports of systemic child abuse in the camps have drawn wide criticism.

Negar, a 22-year-old from Iran who has been on Nauru for four years, said her first interview for U.S. resettlement on Jan. 24 lasted seven hours.

She was asked about her background, including where her family is now, the reason she fled from Iran, and who financed her trip to Christmas Island, a remote Australian island off the continent's northwest that is targeted by many asylum seekers who make the perilous sea journey from Indonesia after paying people smugglers there.

She was also asked whether she had links with any political groups in Iran.

Detainees said interview dates on their applications were removed on Saturday, hours after Trump signed his executive order.

They said they were given no formal explanation. Most of those who spoke to Reuters asked for their names to be withheld, fearing they could jeopardize their future by speaking publicly.

"We are back in limbo, and I am afraid if after four months they make up another thing to keep us here longer," said an Iranian woman with a small child.

"They just play with us, I wish we were dead in the ocean once instead of dying slowly, here in the exile," she said.

Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish Iranian man who has been held on Manus Island for nearly four years, said there was some small consolation from Trump's "dumb deal" tweet.

"Since the day this deal was announced, we have been living with uncertainty over whether it will happen," he said. "Trump's twitter helps us in some ways as we know it will not happen."</s>One day after it was revealed that President Trump had a fiery phone call with his Australian counterpart over a refugee deal agreed upon under President Obama, U.S. immigration officials have postponed interviews with asylum seekers from one of the camps, Reuters reported.

Asylum seekers in the Australian camp on the Pacific island of Nauru told Reuters that their planned second-round interviews with U.S. officials have been postponed indefinitely.

“We are deeply concerned about the U.S. deal,” Imran Mohammad, 22, a stateless man from Myanmar told Reuters. “We don’t know what to believe and the uncertainty is getting worse and worse. It is killing us inside every day.”

Trump on Wednesday fired off about Australia and a dramatic report of an angry phone call between the nations' leaders proves that the new U.S. commander in chief has changed the playing field for even America's staunchest allies.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was left scrambling to defend his country's allegiance to the U.S. after The Washington Post published a report on Thursday detailing a tense exchange that allegedly took place during the Australian leader's first telephone call with Trump since he became president.

During the call, the Post reported, Trump ranted about an agreement struck with the Obama administration that would allow a group of mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States.

The newspaper said Trump dubbed it "the worst deal ever" and accused Turnbull of seeking to export the "next Boston bombers" — a reference to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who were born in Kyrgyzstan and set off explosives at the 2013 Boston marathon.

Though Turnbull declined to confirm the report, he also didn't deny it, apart from rejecting one detail — that Trump had hung up on him. The prime minister insisted his country's relationship with the U.S. remained strong, and that the refugee deal with the U.S. was still on.

Yet shortly after, Trump took to Twitter to slam the agreement, tweeting: "Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!"

Trump's tweet overstated the number of people involved. The U.S. agreed to take some of about 1,670 asylum seekers.

Reuters reported that there are about 1,200 refugees, mostly single men, being held on Manus Island and Nauru.

"They just play with us," one unidentified Iranian woman said. "I wish we were dead in the ocean once instead of dying slowly, here in the exile."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says Australia will honor the agreement to accept refugees from Central America even though the U.S. has postponed interviews with asylum seekers in a camp at the Pacific island of Nauru.