30th CARICOM Summit:
By Rickey Singh
THE stage seems set for a lively debate and, hopefully, matured CARICOM approach in seeking a practical resolution to the current public emotional sparrings involving Barbados’ “removal” of illegal nationals of the Community – the majority of whom happens to be Guyanese – under a new immigration policy.

To judge from a recent response from President Bharrat Jagdeo, host and chairman of the four-day 30th Summit of the 15-member Community, Heads of Government could begin the “debate” tomorrow in a special caucus that is also to approve a crowded agenda of critical matters, including finance, trade and economic development, and the approval of five new ‘Declarations’ designed to deepen regional commitment.

The summit could prove the occasion to bite the bullet on an increasingly controversial issue.

Amid a virtual ‘shouting match’ from various capitals, but primarily involving Bridgetown, Georgetown and Kingstown, Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson has felt compelled to stress his government’s “sovereign right” to shape and implement its own domestic immigration policy.

In the process, some conflicting statistics have emerged on the numbers of those “forcibly sent out” of Barbados or “deported”.

For example, to Prime Minister Thompson’s statement at the weekend that of eight CARICOM nationals “deported” last month four were Guyanese, the Foreign Minister of Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said that information so far received by her revealed that 53 Guyanese nationals were deported during that period.

Sharp responses to the treatment of CARICOM nationals came first from Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, subsequently President Jagdeo, and later by St Lucia’s Prime Minister Stephen King and ex-Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Lester Bird..

They separately contended that it was not Barbados’ right to determine its domestic immigration policy that was being questioned. Rather, that in their zeal to implement a new policy to deal with illegal CARICOM nationals, there have been numerous reported incidents, in the local and regional media, of gross abuses of fundamental rights of persons being arbitrarily “detained and “removed” from Barbados.

Faced with pressures, resulting from such reports, the Guyanese President said he had first discussed the problems with Prime Minister Thompson. Later, he spoke out against claimed cases of “inhumane” and “degrading” treatment meted out to Guyanese before they were “forcibly removed” from Barbados, and requested his Foreign Minister to gather all relevant information.

For his part, Prime Minister Thompson, having announced a six-month amnesty, that came into force on June 1, to allow illegal CARICOM nationals to regularise their status or face expulsion, was to subsequently warned, publicly, his CARICOM colleagues to “stay out” of Barbados’ domestic immigration business.

However, in the face of more than three weeks of reported abuses by immigration and police authorities in their hunt to “detain and remove” undocumented CARICOM nationals, there was still NO categorical official condemnation of the alleged hostile and degrading treatment occurring within the first month of the declared amnesty.

Then, last Saturday, Mr Thompson, in responding at a press conference to his critics – some of whom have questioned violations of the letter and spirit of the announced amnesty programme, engaged himself in a head-count of “illegals” and instances of “deportation”. .

The Prime Minister provided statistics of “visits” for the period June 1-26 by the Immigration Department, in contrast to claims by victims and critics to cases of “knocking on doors at night”; forced entry into dwelling houses and humiliating arrests at public places, including bus stops before being rushed off to “detention” in preparation for “removal” from Barbados.

Thompson explained that those “visits”–(victims and critics insist in calling them “raids” during an amnesty period)–led to “the detention and removal of 47 non-nationals, 34 of whom were Guyanese who were in the country illegally…Of these, eight were deported, four of them Guyanese….”

The comments and disclosures at the Prime Minister’s press conference have sparked some vigorous exchanges, including on the internet, with questions such as: If an amnesty is in place, why did 15 early morning ‘visits’ take place; and if there were just ‘eight’ of who were ‘deported’, then what’s the difference between “detention and removal;” and “deportation”.

Deportation normally takes place at the expense of the government of the country concerned and with the passport of the deportee being so stamped to prevent his/her legal re-entry.

The cases of persons ‘detained and removed’, as distinct from being ‘deported’, would involve having to pay their own expenses but spared from the ‘deportation’ stamp in their passports.

It is the circumstances of the detention and removal of the claimed ‘illegal’ CARICOM nationals that have evoked much of the ongoing bitter war of words that now mock the letter and spirit of provisions of the Revised CARICOM Treaty to consistent with efforts to establish the CSME and deepen functional cooperation.

Prime Minister Thompson, who was scheduled to leave for Guyana yesterday, said he felt “let down” by regional leaders’ responses to his government’s immigration policy.

And, quite, surprisingly, his Health Minister, Donville Inniss, claimed at the weekend that ‘illegal immigrants’ were now “a burden” to the country’s social services. He offered no supporting data, but called on CARICOM leaders “to mind their own business and fix their economies…”

As argued by some passionate regionalists, the recent “removal” of 47 CARICOM nationals could not possibly have any significant positive effect on the Barbados economy.

It is, therefore, presumed that there is some other motivation—a deterrent.

If so, the contention goes, this should be a matter for consultation among the CARICOM leaders on how to dispassionately deal with the problem in the context of the revised treaty on free movement of Community nationals. It is crunch time on immigration policies debate.