Asylum Seekers in Australia Sent to Remote Island for Medical Treatment After Being Deemed 'Security Risk'

A group of asylum seekers is to get medical treatment at a remote detention center 1,000 miles off the coast of Australia after being deemed a security risk. The move comes amid a debate about Canberra's hard-line immigration policy.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison showed journalists around the reopened facilities, which cost $980 million, on the Australian territory of Christmas Island, off the north-east of the country. Some 57 asylum seekers will be treated there.

Australia has been criticized internationally for a policy whereby asylum seekers trying to reach the country by sea are sent to camps in neighboring Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific island of Nauru.

Morrison said on Wednesday the asylum seekers who will be treated are a "national security threat" and stand accused of crimes such as sexual assault and extremism.

When was asked by reporters why he was on the remote island for a public relations exercise, Morrison said it was "important for Australians to know this facility is up to the job," The Guardian reported.

His Liberal Party-led government was defeated last month in a vote that allowed asylum seekers needing urgent medical help to be transferred to the mainland from Papua New Guinea or Nauru.

Morrison hinted that despite the reopening of the facilities on Christmas Island, asylum seekers with serious medical issues would still be flown to the mainland for treatment.

"It is a case-by-case assessment by medical teams that have been in place for years. There is no change to those arrangements," he said.

"The laws that have been passed deny us the opportunity to prevent people coming to Australia who otherwise would never be able to," he said, according to Reuters.

But Morrison has been accused by his opponents of exploiting immigration fears to boost his popularity in the polls ahead of an election, which has to take place by May.

Bill Shorten, leader of the opposition Labor party, said Morrison was on a "marketing campaign." He told reporters in Sydney: "Frolicking on Christmas Island, what a waste of money."

A refugee surgeon who landed on in the island in the 1990s said the government was wrong to reopen the medical facilities there.

"I don't think Christmas Island in the current state is equipped to be a medical evacuation center. It's very small, the facilities are very basic," Dr. Munjed Al Muderis told SBS News.

"It's not a place where people can be referred to, it's a place where you can transfer patients over to the mainland or offshore," he added.

The Christmas Island detention facilities have helped swayed previous elections. In 2001 John Howard won re-election after he refused Norwegian ship carrying 433 refugees entry to Australian waters.