In an effort to raise much needed revenue, it agreed to house an offshore refugee detention center for the government of Australia. In what has become known as “the Pacific Solution,” Australian navy and customs ships intercept boats of migrants and immediately fly them three thousand kilometers to Nauru (as well as to several other Pacific islands). Once on Nauru, the migrants—most from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan—are crammed into a rat-infested guarded camp made up of rows of crowded, stiflingly hot tents. The island imprisonment can last up to five years, with the
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