On New Year’s Eve, two Iranian asylum seekers were allegedly beaten by PNG police on Manus Island. The men claim that they were on their way into town when they were stopped by PNG immigration officers and then beaten by up to 10 police officers. Immigration minister Peter Dutton said that he was ‘wait[ing] to see the full facts of [the] case before [he made] any comment’.
Republican congressman Brian Babin stated that Donald Trump will block the Australia-US deal that would see asylum seekers from Manus Island and Nauru resettled in the US. About 100 people on Nauru have already been processed for resettlement. A spokesman for Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that he remained confident that the deal would go ahead.