The Turnbull government's desperation to clinch a deal in which up to 1800 people presently warehoused on Nauru and Manus are resettled in the United States has become palpable. On Tuesday, Fairfax Media revealed that Immigration and Border Protection departmental secretary Michael Pezzullo and other senior bureaucrats had travelled to the US to brief Department of Homeland Security officials and talk to presidential-elect Donald Trump's transition team. Australia's ambassador in Washington, Joe Hockey, is probably hard at work also trying to convince the skeptics on team Trump and within Congress that the deal agreed to by the Obama administration is in everybody's interest.
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The difficulty Mr Turnbull's emissaries face is considerable, for Mr Trump has frequently and forcefully stated his opposition to immigration or resettlement from regions affected by terrorism, particularly the Middle East. And political convention is that no incoming administration is bound by the agreements or deals of its predecessors. There's also a view in Washington that a large and sparsely populated country like Australia should have no difficulty resettling 1800 people and certainly should not be asking for favours in this regard.
The bad publicity that Nauru and Manus continue to generate at home and abroad makes finalising a deal even more imperative. At the weekend, The New York Times published a lengthy feature in which Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was described as Australia's "own little Trump", and the camps as "a foul chapter that stains Australia and echoes the darkest moments in its history".
The scramble to excise that stain probably explains why the Turnbull government announced the deal in November without supplying details or timelines and without considering the possibility that Hillary Clinton might be defeated in her race to the White House. In expectations the White House would be occupied by another sympathetic Democratic president, the details were apparently to be worked out later. Only after Trump unexpectedly won the presidency did the Turnbull government begin seriously casting about for alternatives to the US deal.
One of countries believed to have been added to the options for resettlement is Malaysia – probably the result of talks that Mr Turnbull had with Najib Razak on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Lima last month. Detainees may resist or be refused resettlement in countries other than the US, however. Indeed, some are reported to be ready to forcibly refuse all destinations except Australia, despite the government's hard-line refusal to countenance this.
Asylum-seekers ought to be content with resettlement in any country free of civil unrest and offering good prospects of integration. Malaysia offers both, and it's predominantly Muslim. Manus and Nauru detainees could argue, however, that the government trumpeted the US as their ticket of leave and is morally obliged to follow through.
The US seems in no mood to cooperate fully, unfortunately. The government, therefore has an urgent duty to conjure up alternatives to end the Manus and Nauru debacles.
