SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to allay concerns Monday that a deal to send refugees from remote Pacific camps to the United States could be scuppered by President-elect Donald Trump. But with the political novice, who campaigned to ban Muslim migration, due to take office on January 20, the head of a prominent US anti-immigration think-tank warned: "This is the kind of thing the Trump administration will nix on Day 1." Canberra sends asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat to detention facilities on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru. Australia's arrangement with the Obama administration followed Turnbull in September saying he was ready to take more refugees from Central America. While Turnbull spoke to Trump by phone soon after the shock election win last week, he said he did not bring up the refugee issue.

Source: Bangkok Post November 14, 2016 01:52 UTC