While the Caribbean Community (Caricom) is resigned to the US deportee system, the region wants more US assistance to deal with problems created by it and also wants incentives to reduce the number of Caribbean nationals flooding the US, says Grenada Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. He was speaking to reporters between yesterday’s talks with US Vice-President Joe Biden.
Mitchell said on the deportee system: “Clearly this is an issue we have to deal with but we have accepted the fact the US Government made that decision and we are not going to get that changed. “We don’t think there’s enough consultation on people returning here and they need to find ways to help us to deal with this on their return.”
Mitchell advocated training programmes to help Caricom states create alternative opportunities for deportees and to empower regional citizens to prevent them from turning to drug or criminal activity. He said yesterday’s meeting was not enough time to go deeply into broad issues and major discussions but leaders identified security and immigration as the main topics of concern in the US which Caricom could leverage to access assistance to deal with such challenges in the region.
Mitchell said leaders in yesterday’s talks should have stayed on those two issues, since “Mr Biden wants a serious story to go home with.” He said the region could use American concerns on reducing inflows of Caribbean people to the US to leverage opportunities for Caribbean nationals and seek empowerment in informational technology and communication, for instance, or assist the region with concessionary terms with the IMF, World Bank and IDB.
He added: “When people see opportunity to earn in the region as much as they can in the US, they won’t go to a cold country and suffer. “Our leverage is if you don’t help us more, more people will flood the US, so I can’t see the US not dealing with our fundamental issues. It’s penny wise and pound foolish... If we felt they were doing enough, they would just come and shake hands but clearly there’s need for a lot more from the US. We cannot continue to have more lip service.”
Mitchell said the region had commonality with the US on drug concerns. “T&T is spending a lot of money on radar systems to counter this and we have to give former prime minister Patrick Manning and present PM Persad-Bissessar a lot of credit for sticking with the issue. The radar is reaping tremendous benefits for us in Grenada.” He saw opportunities in the visits of both the US delegation and that of the Chinese ahead.