Tell US no to refugees, deportees — Gonsalves

Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves says St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) and other CARICOM countries should reject the United States’ proposal to accept refugees and deportees from third countries.

He said that while Minister of National Security and Immigration, St. Clair Leacock, said Monday that Kingstown will stand by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) position, the government should also come to its own conclusion to reject Washington’s request.

Speaking on Star Radio, his Unity Labour Party’s (ULP) radio station, on Monday, Gonsalves, who was voted out of office on Nov. 27, said the United States had approached his administration on the matters not long before the polls.

“I told the US authorities that it was not within their interest and our interest to accept deportees and refugees from third countries emanating out of the United States of America,” said Gonsalves, who served 24 years and eight months continuously as prime minister.  

“The point that I made was that the numbers you’re going to ask us to take, not going to move the needle,” he said, adding that there are tens of thousands of refugees and persons to be deported from the United States.

He said that Washington was suggesting that each OECS country accept between 10 and 20 of these people annually.

“Let us say 12 for each of the six OECS countries. That’s 72 persons. That’s a drop in the bucket as far as the US would be concerned. So why do they want to put that pressure on us?” Gonsalves said.

He suggested that the United States wants to tick a box to leverage larger countries, telling them, “Hey, these nationalist governments in the Eastern Caribbean, small, they take in as many as they can take. What about you? Why don’t you take more?’” Gonsalves said.

The opposition leader said he told the US authorities that the deportees and refugees are going to keep in touch and “they’re going to get linked with the local and regional criminal class, at least some of those, because not all of them would be bad eggs who are coming in.

“But a sufficient number of them would be bad eggs that you’re going to have real problems, which is security,” he said, adding that taking a small number of deportees or refugees annually adds up.

“And I said to them, ‘You have one Haiti already. Why do you want to open the doors of insecurity for ourselves? It’s not in your interest. Please, don’t do this.’”

He said Washington’s actions are in pursuit of its America-first strategy and domination of the Western Hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, and its Donroe Doctrine iteration under President Donald Trump.

Gonsalves said that unless there is a united, concerted effort to go to the United States through CARICOM, states within the 15-member regional bloc are going to be “picked off one by one”.

He said CARICOM countries rolling over and playing dead, thereby becoming neo-colonies or resisting the United States on every single question, would be “an infantile approach, given all the practical circumstances”.

He, however, said there is a range of negotiables in between those two extremes that the region can use to advance its own requests on matters CARICOM would like to see done in its favour, even while not compromising on things that are existential to the bloc.

“… on specific issues like this, the refugees and deportees, … we should say no … and we should explain in the manner in which I’ve just said that is not in the interest of the United States of America for it to be done.”

He rejected the suggestion that the refugees and deportees could include “persons of some quality” who might be skilled and the receiving country’s right of refusal, saying, “… all that sounds good on paper.

“The truth of the matter, the Americans would like to keep the people who are skilled and the people who could build up their country; they don’t want to send them to us. What we’re going to get, by and large, are quote-unquote, the dregs, just like what they sent to El Salvador.”

Gonsalves also pointed out that Washington controls the background information on the people it is attempting to send to the region.

The former minister of national security said that even when CARICOM nationals are deported after serving a sentence in the United States, they are only told about the offence for which the person was imprisoned.

“But they’re not giving you a history of the individual. You don’t know, for instance, whether the person is a psychopath, …  a repeat offender, … the background, the psychosocial assessment of this individual.”

Gonsalves also questioned the practicality of the right of refusal.

“When they’re landed here, what you going to do? Tell them, go back on the plane. The people who bring them are just saying, ‘No! No! No! No! No! We have our instructions to leave them.’ And then you’re going to have a standoff.

“It is fraught with problems with the implementation,” Gonsalves said.

He said he believes the United States would be sending applicants for refugee status rather than refugees.

Gonsalves, a lawyer, said his understanding of international law is that people who is granted refugee status in the United States, “they’re refugees for there, not to send them somewhere else.

He said Vincentian authorities cannot lock up someone indefinitely, noting that Kingstown can detain someone pending deportation.

“.. but the fact of the matter is this, you can only have them for a short period of time,” Gonsalves said, noting that SVG is a signatory to international conventions that govern how it treats refugees.

CARICOM could put on the agenda some things that might even surprise the United States, Gonsalves said, noting that Trump has said that the oil in Venezuela is for Venezuela and for the US.

The former prime minister suggested that CARICOM can negotiate with Washington a refashioning of PetroCaribe so that the United States, Venezuela and the Caribbean could benefit from Venezuela’s oil.

Under PetroCaribe, Caracas provided discounted oil on preferential repayment terms—long-term, low-interest—to participating countries.

In 2022, Caracas forgave Kingstown’s debt under PetroCaribe, which Gonsalves had said was “up to US$70 million, meaning EC$189 million”.

“So why don’t we talk about that?” Gonsalves said, referring to PetroCaribe. “We can …, within the context of CARICOM, with Venezuela and the United States, help Trinidad with the Dragon Field joint exploitation of the resources there between Venezuela and Trinidad.”

He also pointed out that while in office, he had written to Washington seeking visa-free entry for Vincentians.  

“Why can’t we say, ‘We have a visa-free entry to the United Kingdom. We can go there, to the UK, for six months. We can go to the 27 countries in the European Union for up to three months without a visa. We don’t abuse it. We are right here, close to you. We’re not going anywhere. …  Why don’t we have visa-free status for a period of time.’”

Gonsalves said that if Vincentians had visa-free access to the United States for short periods, fewer of them would overstay their visas.

“… because they can go and come, and when the passage is so cheap with JetBlue, it’s a piece of cake.”

Gonsalves said that the US policy on the refugees and deportees has been elaborated in a “drip, drip, drip” manner.

He noted that a proclamation was issued, which covered Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, saying that Washington was suspending the processing of new visas and holders of visas could not enter the United States.

When St. John’s and Roseau made representations, Washington suspended the proclamation, but then they said Antiguan and Dominicans holders of US visas could not visit unless they put up a US$15,000 bond and could only enter through Washington, Boston, or JFK in New York, even as most flights from the two countries are to Miami.

Gonsalves said that CARICOM could tell the United States that it has an opportunity, through its relationship with the bloc, to “give the lie to this particular talk, which is going around all over the world, that you don’t want brown people or black people to come to America.

“But CARICOM has to act boldly and act together as one. What the Americans are doing, they go to one country. They say, ‘OK, let’s get this agreement.’ They go to another country, get another agreement, and then the next thing you know is everybody, and St. Vincent now is roped into this.”

He said the Godwin Friday New Democratic Party government has not said anything on the matter beyond that Kingstown will work through regional arrangements.

“And I agree, you have to work through regional arrangements, as I’m suggesting, but not just on a specific issue, on a range of issues, but you must have a position.

“And I’m calling on them to say, ‘No. We are not going to accept refugees — well, it will be applicant refugees in the United States — or deportees. We can’t do it. It’s not in your interest, too, America.’ So, you have a position when you go to the rest of the region,” Gonsalves said.