A diplomatic row may be brewing between Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica over the deportation this week of 13 Jamaican nationals a day after they landed at Piarco International Airport. The T&T Guardian understands that discussions are being held by officials at the Jamaican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade on the matter. The Jamaican High Commission to T&T has also said it is speaking with the relevant authorities on the matter.
The meeting comes as Jamaicans yesterday expressed anger over their compatriots’ deportation, noting there had been several similar incidents in recent times. However, in a phone interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, National Security Minister Gary Griffith said there were valid reasons for denying the Jamaicans entry.
According to a Jamaican Observer report on Wednesday, 13 Jamaican nationals were returned home on Wednesday after being detained at Piarco International Airport on Tuesday night. The Jamaicans claimed that their passports were confiscated and they were ordered to sit on a wooden bench throughout the night before they were “rudely bundled” on a Caribbean Airlines flight and sent home.
In response to this, the Jamaican ministry issued a press release on Wednesday saying: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade is aware that over the past several weeks, a significant number of Jamaicans have been denied entry into Trinidad and Tobago and returned to Jamaica within days on the grounds that the immigration authorities of T&T have deemed them ineligible to be landed as bona fide visitors.
“The ministry is concerned at this development and continues to interface with the relevant authorities in T&T on the matter, including in the light of the Shanique Myrie ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice,” the release stated. But Griffith, who spoke while in Barbados en route to London, said he had checked with Chief Immigration Officer Keith Sampson on the matter, and was told there were good reasons for denying the Jamaicans entry.
“If a person makes a claim and they have a host in Trinidad and that person is coming to the airport to meet them and the person does not show up, or if they claim that they are here to work but do not have a Caricom skills certificate, or don’t have a letter from a company saying they are being employed here, then they will be turned back,” he said.
“In the case of several individuals we had similar situations. For example, one person said she was bringing the child to meet her father and the father never shows at the airport, one said she was on vacation but only had US$250, and another said they were here to work with no Caricom skills certificate.” Griffith said T&T was welcome to all Caricom nationals, but could not allow people who did not have a clear way of supporting themselves or did not have individuals to assist them on entry.
“If we do that then we could have hundreds of people coming everyday looking for work and eventually it could lead to an increase in unemployment here and problems for the State,” he said. Further, Griffith said Immigration officers were working with clear guidelines and whenever there is a complaint there is a process to ensure the officers are not acting arbitrarily.
However, head of the Jamaican foreign ministry’s public relations office, Ann-Margaret Lim, in a phone interview, said they had already embarked on an education campaign on the free movement of people under the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME). Asked if the series of deportations were cases of Jamaicans misunderstanding the concept of free movement, Lim did not answer.
The Jamaican foreign ministry’s release said when the incidents were brought to their attention, the Jamaican High Commission in T&T sought to have the nationals safely returned and the commission was instructed to seek clarification and information from the relevant T&T authorities. The commission’s foreign service officer, Delita McCallum, said yesterday they were consulting with the relevant authorities on the matter and would comment at a later date, adding the commission was still trying to ascertain the facts.
The incident has brought back memories of the recent Shanique Myrie case against Barbados in the Caribbean Court of Justice. Myrie was awarded Bds$75,000 or J’can$3.6 million after being denied the right to enter Barbados.
The CCJ found that the Barbadian government breached Myrie’s right to enter the country under Article Five of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. Myrie took the Barbadian government to court after she said she was discriminated against, based on her nationality, after arriving in the country on March 14, 2011. Calls to T&T”s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran and Sampson went answered.