Harold Lovell has criticised the government’s stated willingness to accept non-criminal deportees from the United States, describing the policy as reckless and disconnected from local realities.
In a statement, Lovell said Prime Minister Gaston Browne was wrong to suggest Antigua and Barbuda could absorb deportees with “skills we can use,” arguing that unemployment remains high and young people are already struggling to find work.
Lovell warned that bringing in non-criminal deportees would place additional pressure on housing, healthcare and public infrastructure, and said the approach revived painful memories of the Antigua Airways controversy, which he characterised as a period marked by poor transparency and weak oversight.
Although he acknowledged the circumstances were not identical, Lovell said the current situation reflected a familiar pattern in which major international arrangements were entered into quietly, with explanations coming only after public concern had been raised. He said such actions exposed the country to reputational and security risks.
According to Lovell, decisions of this magnitude should not be taken without a clear public mandate, parliamentary debate or broad consultation. He described the policy direction as “reckless governance” and called for a change in approach, saying it was time to restore pride and put the country back on track.
Full Statement by Harold Lovell
*“Prime Minister Browne’s announcement that Antigua and Barbuda is prepared to accept non-criminal deportees with ‘skills we can use’ is reckless and deeply out of touch.
With unemployment high and young people struggling to find work, this government is prepared to accept non-criminal deportees from the US, further straining housing, healthcare and infrastructure.
This issue reopens painful memories of the Antigua Airways debacle, when we were told wealthy Africans were coming. Although the circumstances are not identical, it reflects a familiar failure of transparency, oversight and due diligence. Major international arrangements were entered into quietly, explanations came only after the fact, and the country was left exposed to reputational and security risks. Antiguans and Barbudans remember the Prime Minister claiming he was duped and we are wary when agreements are signed in silence and justified later.
Once again, critical decisions are made without mandate, without debate and without public consultation. This is reckless governance. It is time to restore pride and put this country back on track.”*
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Ok UPP we all know u gonna use this opportunity to bash Gaston left, right and center….UPP would be in the same boat or most likely in a deeper pile of shit if they were in power…..UPP was the government who got in deep with Chavez when Antigua’s pockets were on E….Gaston wants our VISAS so he is bowing to Trump telling him he’s sorry he is clean he didn’t have anything to do with Maduro. He will accept deportees with skills he will do anything please just give us our VISAS…..UPP u would be in the same boat crying so please miss me with the bashing…..
ROMANTIC RHYTHMS
WADADLI POWER CAN’T ABST HOTEL RIPOFF ABIB COLLAPSER BANKING-SECTOR COLLAPSER ANTI-UWI FIVE ISLANDS CAMPUS BAICO COLLAPSER ETC
Oh no. Not you nar na na. Anyone except you and Bowen
The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda has forfeited the moral authority to ask this nation to trust him on matters of migration, national security, or human dignity. His intention to accept so-called “skilled” deportees from the United States is not only irresponsible—it is morally bankrupt.
It takes a particular kind of contempt for one’s own people to repackage U.S. deportees as an economic opportunity while thousands of Antiguan and Barbudan youths remain unemployed, undertrained, and forgotten. The Prime Minister’s claim insults both logic and lived reality. If these individuals are truly skilled and valuable, why is the United States expelling them? The answer is self-evident, and the attempt to disguise it is dishonest.
What makes this proposal especially offensive is that it comes from a Prime Minister whose record on migration is already stained by death, secrecy, and national shame.
The country has not forgotten the West African trafficking scandal—where African nationals were quietly ushered into Antigua under government watch, with the involvement of the Prime Minister’s close associate, Olabanjo, a senior official in the Ministry of Agriculture. The public was misled. We were told these individuals were workers. In truth, Antigua was used as a transit corridor, reducing human beings—sons and daughters of Africa—into disposable instruments in a reckless scheme to access U.S. shores.
The moral failure here does not stop at our shores. It extends to the African continent itself.
Africa has suffered centuries of exploitation, extraction, and human trafficking at the hands of global powers. For a Caribbean leader—descended from those same historical injustices—to participate in or enable modern-day schemes that endanger African lives is nothing short of a betrayal of shared history and shared struggle. This was not solidarity. It was complicity.
The consequences are undeniable: 17 African lives lost at sea, smuggled out of Antigua under deeply questionable circumstances, including airport operations conducted outside normal hours. Seventeen lives erased. Seventeen families across the continent left without answers. And yet—no full disclosure, no accountability, no resignations, no apology.
Not even shame.
Now, with that unresolved tragedy still hanging over the nation, the Prime Minister has the audacity to present another migration scheme, again cloaked in misleading language and hollow assurances. This is not an error in judgment—it is a pattern of moral collapse.
A leader guided by conscience would be focused on uplifting his own people while honoring the dignity of others. He would invest in youth training, job creation, and national development—not barter human lives and national integrity to curry favor with foreign governments. Antigua and Barbuda should never be positioned as a buffer state for U.S. migrant expulsions, nor as a waypoint in policies that degrade human dignity.
Antigua and Barbuda is not a dumping ground, not a testing site for failed foreign policies, and not a corridor for human suffering disguised as diplomacy.
By continuing down this path, the Prime Minister demonstrates a profound indifference to human life—Antiguan, African, or otherwise—and a reckless disregard for the nation’s moral standing on the world stage. Leadership stripped of conscience is not leadership at all; it is betrayal.
If there is any respect left for the dignity of Antigua and Barbuda, and for our historical bonds with Africa and the Global South, this plan must be abandoned immediately. The Prime Minister owes this nation—and the continent whose sons paid the ultimate price—truth, accountability, and moral reckoning.
Surprise surprise! The Gastonites are showing their true colours by supporting Gaston Browne rather than the country.
Gaston can make the hurricane Irma 1 million dollar donation for Barbuda disappear, but they don’t care; the African airline fiasco is fine with the Gastonites as well; the wasteful use of taxpayers money on the Alpha Nero super yacht dem also love and will never query; and let’s not forget CIP, NAMCO and the YIDA financial mismanagement and secrecy within government; and now the imminent arrivals of refugees and deportees doesn’t bother the Gastonites at all – where are their comments on this?
Yet, look at what gets these Gastonites worked up?
Not the above mismanagement practices and lack of transparency by Gaston Browne, but the reappearance of the Honourable Harold Lovell for just opening his mouth.
These unpatriotic ignoramuses really beggars belief. Mystifying?!?
It seems as if they love Gaston Browne even more than the ABLP he represents.
How embarrassing???
I bet they have pictures of he all over dem yard
@the world.
You clearly miss the point in this entire Visa thing.
It’s the fact that we got here is the big failure, not the UPP would be crying just like GB is doing now.
How we got here and why keep lying to the Antiguan people?
The fact that Antiguan’s want back their Visa, is a mute point.
Stop jumping from topic to topic.
The topic is, why didn’t GB and his Ambassador save Antigua from this embarrassment?
That’s the massive failure here.
Mr Lovell. It is good for you to come forward to say something about this vexing situation. You are right with all the reasons you gave for us not to receive those deportes. You said, ‘this is reckless governance’ . Then after that, all you could say is ‘It is time to restore pride and put this country back on track’.
That’s it? Is that what follows your strong reckless governance claim? Where is the fire after that? Where is the resolve? Where are the words that you should use to engage Gaston Browne because of his reckless act of governance?
Is this to be just another nice UPP speech and then you sit back and wait to see what Gaston Browne will do? Because we all know he will not do jack sh-t because he knows all he is getting from you is sound and no fury. Nobody is going to remember your words tomorrow out of the plenty that are said so far on this topic.
Father God, I beg you. I implore you, please send us a fighter. Please send us a red blooded avenger who could handle that man. We are begging you for a champion. Not one with just pretty words. Not just one who knows the correct words to say, but one who could take the fight to Gaston Browne. One who will challenge him so that we can all cheer for our champion.
Father God, we need a champion. Amen.
You-all are confused, it is Gaston and a few fanatic blogging and answering under different names, the same exact repitious blog about Harold Lovell.
We are bless to have some outstanding institutions of learning in Wadadli, but at times, to the PM we standout as very naive. We understand you were being pressured by the US to accept Deportees and Refugees, and everyone knows when the US is on your back, especially this present US administration, one will eventually cave. Forget about Harold Lovell, Pringle and the UPP, plus don’t even mention the DNA or the other newly formed party, since they would have cave immediately as a government in similar circumstances.
Mr PM, by the way what did we get in return? Yes we must accept our own Deportees, criminal or none criminal, but this thing about accepting 10 Refugees per year with skills is where the naive kicks in, since you’re telling us that when ICE picked these people up, an interview usually takes place to find out their work ethics and skills, now that’s a joke.
What I also find interesting is, here we have the US having issues with our CBi program, cause they don’t want the wrong people entering the US, but they have the power to push us accept whomever they send us. Now that’s power.
This is a good response. I’m not against the imagination depending on the number of people since it’s just helps where we don’t have the people right now and that can’t be built overnight so experienced workers in that field with youth would develop that sector with the most important places in Antigua being agricultural and healthcare of course replying on local persons first before importing for that area.
But the fact people have a hard time entering the job market already isn’t going to make this popular with the people that are struggling to do things such as get a job in a sector they want or home and how anti-immigration comes about where instead blaming the people who is allowing and choosing to import rather develop local talent.
The housing we use also might not be able to support a large number of people since we can’t even support the need of locals also valid but would love to criticism on the housing system we use.
Also I can’t really disagree trusting trump’s admin to deliver on people with the the skills you want when he and the people in his government doesn’t really see them as people, believe you can do anything about it or care to give what you’re ask for when he’s just sending people literally anywhere that will accept them.
Joann quiet no arse on this business about accepting refugees. Time to speak up if you really have intentions of running the Country, like you only have strength fu UPP, how can we take you serious, just stop the pappyshow
@ Brixtonian you seem not to realize that all the Gastonites and most of the Labourites are not at all rational in their thinking, when Gaston speaks most of them do not really comprehend but just go along to get along