The Australian government has signed a $400m deal with the government of Nauru allowing it to deport hundreds of foreign-born criminals whose visas were cancelled on character grounds.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, travelled to Nauru on Friday to sign a memorandum of understanding with president David Adeang, which states Australia will pay around $70m a year in addition to an upfront fee.
The deal relates to about 280 non-citizens in the Australian community who are known as the NZYQ cohort, who previously faced indefinite immigration detention. These people could not be deported to their home countries because they faced persecution, or because those countries refused to accept them.