A refugee being held on Manus Island has described the anguish of feeling like "I can be traded for anything" in a conversation between Malcolm Turnbull and Donald Trump.
Imran Mohammad, who has been in offshore detention for almost four years, cried after reading a leaked transcript of the two leaders discussing a people-swap deal, feeling as if he were "just a product".
"I am just a human being and there is no need to play with my life. All I want is to respect and love others and be loved and respected in return," he said on Friday in a statement released by the Human Rights Law Centre.
"All I need is a sense of belonging to a safe country so that I can live a life that every human deserves."
During the January phone call, revealed in full by the Washington Post, the prime minister corralled the new president into endorsing the refugee deal.
The agreement, hatched with the Obama administration, involved the US accepting up to 1250 refugees held on Manus Island and Nauru, in return for Australia taking asylum seekers from Central America.
Mr Turnbull assured the president he wasn't obliged to accept a single refugee under the deal, needing only to process them to hold up his end of the bargain.
The prime minister said Australia would rather take "a not very attractive guy" than a Nobel Peace Prize winner who came by boat.
Mr Trump praised Mr Turnbull for being "worse than I am" on rejecting refugees but bemoaned the "disgusting" deal.
More than 1600 refugees have expressed interest in the US resettlement deal, which is expected to offer about 1200 places.
