Leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have largely accepted the U.S. decision to deport nationals from the region who are residing illegally in the United States. However, they are also working to formulate a collective response to the Donald Trump administration’s global reduction in foreign aid.
While acknowledging the enforcement of U.S. immigration policies, CARICOM members are expressing concerns over the broader implications of reduced aid. The leaders are now focused on developing diplomatic strategies to address the cutbacks in U.S. assistance, which have had significant impacts on the Caribbean and other regions.
“St Lucia’s position is, we have citizens in the US who are there illegally? St Lucia will cooperate with the US as far as that is concerned. But you need to be respected,” Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“You need to be treated as a state that obeys the laws and the regulations of every country. We will not encourage anyone to disobey the laws in United States, nor should anyone be encouraged,” Pierre said.
His Antigua and Barbuda counterpart, Gaston Browne, said deporting nationals from the United States “is nothing new.
“I’m told, actually, under the Obama administration that more Caribbean nationals had been deported than what is actually on the list that we’ve seen recently under the Trump administration.
“I think we have an obligation to accept our citizens who are deported at the end of the day. We cannot make them stateless,” Browne said, adding that “at this point, based on the quantities that I’ve seen, I don’t think it is extraordinary.
“We just have to make sure that there’s collaboration at the regional level to ensure that those involved in criminal activities that they do not get the opportunity to travel freely within this the CARICOM space and to create problems for us”.
St Kitts-Nevis Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr Denzil Douglas, said the Caribbean, like the rest of the world is “waiting to see the unfolding of the new administration in the United States.
“Of course, there are some immediate areas that we have to look at,” he said, making reference to the immigration issues and the “mass movement of people out of the United States back to the Caribbean region.
“We’re asking for the public protocols to be established and pursued, as we would have done in the past, where names of perspective immigrants would be sent to us or the police,” he said, noting that the names could also be submitted to ”our missions in Washington and processed and then the appropriate action taken.
“And we believe we can achieve this, because this is something that we’ve worked on in the past. I believe that once we can dialogue on issues like this, then of course, it would be better for all of us,” he said, acknowledging that while the Caribbean has not really dialogued with somebody like Trump “we’ve dialogue with persons who have held the office before and persons who have been secretary of state”.
Douglas said that one of the immediate things that he believes is needed to be done “is for us as Caribbean leaders, Caribbean governments, to seek an early opportunity to speak with the administration at the highest level”.
On the issue of the Trump administration implementing policies, including a significant reduction in foreign assistance, Browne said that in the case of his country “we do not get any significant support in terms of grant aid or even concession funding from the US”.
But he said that the situation may be different for other Caribbean countries “and we’re hoping that ultimately, you know, when the dust settles, that these institutions will be reestablished, or if they reorganize in some other way, but that will continue deliver benefits to the Caribbean people.
“So we’re watching this space to see how it develops,” he added.
