PM Browne: No moral grounds to reject nationals deported from the US

LOOP CARIBBEAN: Antigua and Barbuda nationals who are deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation exercise will be welcomed back home.

During an interview with Loop News at the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean’s (CAF) inaugural International Economic Forum in Panama City, Panama, Prime Minister Gaston Browne stated that Antigua and Barbuda has no choice but to accept its deported nationals.”

“I think we have an obligation to take them back, even if they are in the United States illegally,” he said.

A recent US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) document showed there were 110 Antiguans on the list to be deported from the US.

Nana Gyamfi, the Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), recently urged Caribbean leaders to refuse to sign deportation documents to accept their nationals back home.

She noted no deportations can take place unless the home country agrees to accept their citizens.

Gyamfi highlighted some of the deportees who are branded as criminals were wrongfully accused of crimes.

“We know people sometimes plead to a petty theft because they just want to get back to work…they think it’s easy for them, they’ve been wrongfully accused, but you know, they don’t have time to fight the system. If you’re an ambassador in the United States from the Caribbean, you should not be going along with it. That is the best way to protect countries from having all of these folks being deported into the country. We have all these ways to throw wrenches into the game, and we’re going to be depending on our leaders to do that,” she said.

Browne has a different view to Gyamfi.

“I don’t know we have any moral or even legal basis in which to stand other than to accept them and to find productive ways to engage them,” he said.

Mexico and Colombia recently refused to accept nationals being deported by the US on a military aircraft.

Trump threatened to impose sweeping retaliatory measures against Colombia, including tariffs and visa sanctions.

Colombia later recanted with the government stating President Gustavo Petro had arranged from his presidential plane to travel to the US to bring the deportees back in a dignified manner.

“The Government of Colombia, under the leadership of President Gustavo Petro, has arranged for the presidential plane to facilitate the dignified return of Colombian nationals who were to arrive in the country today in the morning hours, coming from deportation flights,” the statement said.

It added: “This measure responds to the Government’s commitment to guarantee dignified conditions. In no way have Colombians, as patriots and subjects of rights, been or will be banished from Colombian territory.”

Loop News also asked Browne if Antigua and Barbuda was approached to accept nationals from countries whose governments refused to accept them.

Last year, it was reported that the Trump transition team had approached the governments of multiple Caribbean nations including The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos to accept people whose countries refused them.

He said accepting large groups non-nationals into the would be a challenge for country.

“I would have to say here that that would be a very difficult proposition unless the type of financial support that would be given would make it extremely lucrative still to do. But outside of that, I don’t know that we’d want to go beyond accepting those who are Antiguans who are living in the United States illegally and would be deported,” he stated.

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