Hinting at discomfort with the U.S. approaching individual nations to accept deportees, island nations in the Eastern Caribbean say it might be best for them to engage the U.S. as a collective rather than as individual countries in the coming weeks.
This was one of the key decisions from last week’s meeting of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), held in St. Lucia in the wake of a string of major policy changes by the U.S. that are affecting the regional sub-grouping.
A statement from the grouping said that the request from Washington for nations to accept deportees from countries that either refuse to accept them or, in cases where the deportees do not want to return home, is important enough to be handled as a group rather than individually.
And so, they have agreed to establish a special task force. “The heads of government discussed the requests by the United States to OECS member states, including Grenada, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis to accept third country nationals (TCN) from the United States and noted that some OECS member states have already signed non-legally binding memoranda of understanding with the United States to enter into further discussions with the United States on the matter.
“The heads of government have therefore agreed to establish a broad-based, high-level negotiating team, comprising representatives from OECS member states, to undertake technical negotiations with the US on this matter,” a statement noted.
The U.S. has said that it wants to dump small numbers of these deportees in the region, mostly of people whose asylum applications have been refused, visa overstays, and related categories of persons. All of the regional member nations say they will not accept deportees with criminal backgrounds, while St. Kitts and Nevis say they will accept Caribbean nations only, except those from Haiti, a decision which has drawn widespread criticism.
Guyana and Antigua, for example, have openly welcomed the proposal, especially if it involves deportees with engineering and other high-level skills, saying these are much needed.
The decision to engage collectively also comes in the wake of requests from individual nations for the US military to set up radars and other facilities on home soil, a decision that has received some pushback from civil society groups and opposition parties.
