In what appears to be the first set of visa cancellations for Caribbean government officials linked to the Cuban medical brigade program, the US State Department says it has cancelled the entry visas of an unidentified number of Grenadian officials and family members. This move has stunned government officials in the Eastern Caribbean tourism-dependent nation.
More than five months after Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened to upend the payment system for doctors, nurses, and other Cuban professionals working in the region, Grenadian officials are the first in the CARICOM bloc to become victims of visa revocations.
The announcement was made on Wednesday, and Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell’s administration had not formally reacted to it until midday Thursday. It remains unclear who the cancellations affect, the officials or their family members.
Washington has been railing against the decades-old system agreed bilaterally between governments and Cuba to pay workers a percentage of their earnings in the country of employment. At the same time, the remainder, or the bulk, goes back to Havana as a source of foreign exchange earnings through the exports of medical professionals.
Dubbing it forced labor and human trafficking, the Trump administration vowed to take action against officials around the world who enable such a payment system. The revocations also pertain to countries in Africa and Cuba.
“This expanded policy applies to current or former Cuban government officials, and other individuals, including foreign government officials, who are believed to be responsible for, or involved in, the Cuban labor export program, particularly Cuba’s overseas medical missions,” the State said in an announcement.
“Today, the Department of State took steps to impose visa restrictions on African, Cuban, and Grenadian government officials, and their family members, for their complicity in the Cuban regime’s medical mission scheme in which medical professionals are ‘rented’ by other countries at high prices and most of the revenue is kept by the Cuban authorities.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Andall, a graduate of a Cuban university, is suspected of being on the list. In March, he said he had no problems living without an American visa, as the Cuban program is essential to the local health sector.
Minister of Finance Dennis Cornwall, also a Cuban graduate, argued that he was loyal to the Cuban program, noting the valuable contribution of Cuban medics to Grenada.
“I always believe you have to put the people above one’s political self and, in that sense, I believe that my government has already sighted that we are prepared to go to the extreme to make sure to keep our people safe. So, if it means that we have to give up our visa rights to the US to make sure that Grenada stands behind Cuba as one of the countries that support Grenada in thick and thin, so be it,” he added.
To comply with Washington’s edict, Guyana, Antigua, and The Bahamas scrambled to mend their payment systems to avoid an ideological clash with the US. It is unclear whether other revocations are in the making.
