[RightGeek]

I would also say that it was a bad deal for Australia too. The current Australian immigration rules work because would-be illegal immigrants know they won't get into Australia so they don't try.

Now they might well think that they could get into the USA instead and will start arriving again. Trump is doing both countries a favor by making a stink about it.

[naturalman1975]

There is a degree of truth in that, but that’s why the deal has always been stated very clearly to be a one off deal which will not be repeated.

That normally wouldn’t necessarily mean much, but in the current circumstances, that does make sense. We only have these people to deal with because Labor softened the policies surrounding boat arrivals between 2007 and 2012 - these people are a legacy of that decision. Now Labor has accepted that the offshore detention policies that worked (and reintroduced them in 2013), that’s unlikely to happen again. The boats have been stopped again and they should stay stopped, meaning we’ll only ever have a handful of these people to deal with again, not thousands.