There are still two months until the immigration centre - formerly a detention facility - on Manus Island is set to close, and the government is advancing preparations for its closure.
Around 100 men have been told they are being sent to the Papua New Guinean capital, Port Moresby, for medical treatment but, according to the ABC, many are suspicious of the timing.
The centre is due to shut its doors on October the 31st.
The remaining detainees have reportedly received a letter detailing their accommodation options, including returning to their country of origin.
There are also reports a cash incentive will be given to those who take up this option.
Greens Senator Nick McKim has met some former detainees who have been resettled in Papua New Guinea.
He has told Sky news the men are in a difficult situation.
"They're quite desperate because as the UNHCR have pointed out, it's not a safe place for these guys to settle. As the Papua New Guinean government has pointed out to the Australian government, they're not welcome here as far as the PNG government's concerned, and the guys believe that they're in the process of being abandoned by Peter Dutton in PNG and they genuinely believe their lives are at risk."
The reports from PNG follow an announcement by the Federal Government that as of Monday (aug 28), it was stopping the welfare payments to nearly 100 asylum seekers brought to Australia to receive medical treatment.
They were also given just three weeks to find new accommodation, and moved onto a specially-created visa.
Opposition politicians say they are looking at whether the decision can be overturned.
Chairman of the Community Council of Australia, Tim Costello, has told the ABC it's unneccesarily harsh.
"I feel that Australian policy has been unnecessarily cruel and keeps getting crueller. We know the turnback actually works. We know that to take some people from Manus and Nauru is not going to start the boats again because turnback is effective. Whilst some of us might say we don't have transparency about the turnbacks, it actually works. It protects the borders. Therefore to penalise people on Manus and Nauru, making them a means to an end, saying, 'You are the means, your indefinite detention and psychological torture is the means to sending a message', when the boat smugglers are actually being stopped by turnback, I think that shames all of us."
Meanwhile, a number of Christian churches are offering sanctuary to the people caught up in the government's crackdown.
The chair of the taskforce is the Anglican Dean of Brisbane, the Very Reverend Peter Catt.
He says the churches are simply standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves.
"So the sanctuary offer would kick in if the government sought to remove their legal status or to round them up or take them back to Nauru or Manus by force. We will not stand by and allow them to remain destitute and cause them to live in terror."
It comes as the Department of Immigration and Border Protection has confirmed it detained six Chinese men and a Papua New Guinean who were attempting to illegally enter Australia in the Torres Strait.
One Chinese man and a Papuan New Guinea national have appeared in court, charged with people-smuggling.
They have been remanded in custody, while the other five men have been returned to China.
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