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Ambassador La Celia Prince. (Internet photo)
Ambassador La Celia Prince. (Internet photo)

Vincentians in the United States who qualify are being encouraged to become U.S. citizens to guard against deportation and to facilitate greater participation in the decision-making process.

The encouragement came from Kingstown’s ambassador to Washington, La Celia Prince, on Saturday at the annual town hall meeting with Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves in New York.

“Now there are many of you who are residents of the United States who are entitled to citizenship and I know the Consul General has encouraged you if you are entitled to citizenship to go the extra length.

“We don’t want to get into your business as such or to tell you how to run your lives but we want to encourage you to empower yourselves through citizenship,” Prince said.

“There are many instances where we have had to deal with or we see families being separated because of deportation. It is a very real issue here, people who have been here for years, but, for whatever reason have run afoul of the law and have had to be deported,” she further said.

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Prince noted that unlike U.S. citizens, residents can be deported.

“If you are a resident and you run afoul of the law, you can be expelled from the country. So, empower yourselves, go the extra mile,” she said.

“Empowering yourselves also means that you have a stake in the country, you have a voice … because you can make your voice heard through the power of the vote.

“There are many things that are happening on Capitol Hill, legislation that is being crafted which would affect your lives as well as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, such as immigration reform, such as the financial action task force legislation that would actually tax your savings overseas.

“But when you have the power of the vote, you can go to your congressperson and let your voice be heard. So we advice you to consider these words of advice from us so that you can empower yourselves and thereby empower St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” Prince said.

3 replies on “Envoy urges Vincentians who qualify to become US citizens”

  1. Canute Campbell says:

    Ms Prince, you are so correct. Keep on telling them what is good.. GO AND GET YOUR CITIZENSHIP. YOU PAY TAXES AND YOU AINT ON WELFARE. YOU CARRY MORE POWER THAN MOST PEOPLE THAT BORN HERE. GET YOURSELF STRAIGHT. In the military, I had to get my citizenship in order to get a Top Secret clearance in the Air Force. If I didn’t, I could not even have gotten my private pilots license. But I did it all.

  2. They want them to become US citizens so as we don’t have to have them back here.

    We have enough children leaving school to sink the island, without having to take back the rejects from the US.

    Employing Cubans and Venezuelans, when we have such a problem of our own, that has got to be the action of an anti-patriot No not parrot, those people left the island after gifting us 20,000 banana plants, without ever knowing we can produce that many every week at Orange Hill, what a hoot.

  3. Unbelievable. Would the US advise it’s citizens to do this, would Canada, would any country?? This is the height of stupidity, Mrs Ambassador, do you know that the United States do not recognize no other nationality in the case of duel citizenship?.

    Sometimes I just have to laugh, what about SVG doesn’t SVG need people too. If someone wants to stay that is there right, but your mission as Ambassador of SVG, is not to encourage Vincentians to take up residence in someone else’s country. This only show that things are really bad in SVG and there is nothing for anyone there.

    There are many people who are back home not after many years and have been voicing about the country. And unlike people who have been in vincy, their eyes are not covered and it is hard to fool returning residents. So encouraging them to stay abroad is the easiest way for them to not come home and realize the terrible job that the DR has done.

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