PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad -- The United States on Monday reached a deal with Dominica to start sending foreigners seeking U.S. asylum to the small Caribbean nation.
Dominica has a population of roughly 72,000, and Monday’s announcement has left many locals concerned about whether the island has enough resources to absorb asylum-seekers into its population, according to Thomson Fontaine, leader of the country’s main opposition party.
(ABC News)
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Antigua and Barbuda also announced Monday that it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding proposed by the U.S. “as part of its global efforts to share responsibility for refugees already present in its territory.” Local government officials said Antigua and Barbuda would not be accepting anyone with a criminal record.
(ABC News)
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — A senior Guyanese official has confirmed that the Caribbean Community (Caricom) country is holding talks with the United States (US) on accepting third-country nationals from the North American country.
“Guyana and the USA have been in productive discussions on a framework of understanding which is consistent with our national priorities and needs and supportive of the USA objectives,” Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud told the Demerara Waves Online News.
(Jamaica Observer)
I'm surprised no one answered the question, but the answer is "no", none of these countries have the real capacity to do so. They're all poor third world countries and would benefit from payments the US gives them (if it actually gives them anything) to take in the asylum seekers.
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Assuming that these countries are set up similarly to mine, they have no meaningful social safety net for their own citizens tbh. A lot of how people survive and live is through the network of family-> living on family land, a family member goes overseas and sends remissions. Most of the wealth generated goes to the owners of production in foreign countries. Last I checked, our version of welfare pays $200 EC a month which is nothing. Theres also not much meaningful social housing. Refugees will likely be on the streets unless the US gives money to take them, and still the process of doing anything here is so slow they likely will be anyways.
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A lot of that Guyanese land is (I think, I could be wrong) inhabited by indigenous tribes. I do feel icky about the potential of taking more away from them, and the process of developing that far inland is probably not worth it tbh. Theyd have to build roads, add in water and electricity and still be relatively isolated.
We're gonna aid the USA in their humans right violations in a futile effort to ingratiate ourselves to them amazing 👍
Also, if someone can't be deported to their home country then it means that their refugee status was found to be credible and sending them to their home country would be dangerous to them. So, the solution the US found was to try and offload them to other countries. I assume they promised something to the governments of the Caribbean countries accepting this in return.
Even in the 'ideal' way they described this it's a disaster for the receiving countries and seeing how incompetent the current US administration is you can already tell it's not going to go in the 'ideal' way they described.
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There's no getting ahead with this. It's almost as uneven as an exchange can get. The US is the party with all power in this situation. Any gains will be absolutely minimal. I don't think aiding a massive deportation scheme is worth it in any capacity.
Also, alot of Caribbean governments have done incredibly shady things before to enrich themselves. When exactly has it ever paid off for the average citizen?
New update but the US also imposed the $15k visa bond on them as well. I thought the point of the refugees would be to annul the ban completely.
$15k visa ban + taking in refugees just doesn’t seem worth it. It might be time for the Caribbean to start seeking out and leaning on a different hegemon.
It's definitely not worth it. The US is only doing this, I assume, to get around something that's preventing them from deporting these people back to their home countries.
What I think is happening is that these are people that are being indefinitely held in the facilities like alligator Alcatraz. The administration isn't confident that they can get a deportation order for all of them so they'll give them the option of signing up to come to the Caribbean or stay in those facilities for who knows how long awaiting their trial.
I would love for the Caribbean to deepen ties with China, as they're rising at the moment. It's already happening and I think I think it will inevitably get alot stronger but it'll take a while.
There's increasing Chinese investment and partnership in the region but it's lagging behind South America by alot. I think it just has to do with English being spoken in alot of the Caribbean so it's only natural that we'd be slower to embrace China, plus we have less to offer and we're closer to the US than China.
And not to mention the stunt the US pulled in Venezuela recently and then making it quite clear that they see this as 'their hemisphere'. I think that'll potentially slow things down even more.
It’s hard because the US is the current hegemonic power, although china is trying. And given how close we are to them geographically I find it hard to believe they would allow us to deepen ties with them. The EU is kinda semi useless, I’m not even certain they have the true ability to stop the US from taking Greenland if they actually want to. Canada just …exists. There’s no other western power with the capability to stop them.
Yeah that's exactly what I've been thinking. We can try to deepen ties with them, but if we'll even be allowed to do that, in any meaningful capacity is another thing. Guyana has basically already given up autonomy anyway after handing over oil to Exxon. Though I don't know how much of a choice they had.
I don't see the EU as being relevant to our region. They're increasingly getting overshadowed by the US and China even in their own region and surrounds.
I would have liked for our countries to deepen ties with each other and then South America. But I think instead of putting up a united front our leaders have increasingly acted selfishly for short term gains. Example being how they approached tariffs.
allow is an excellent point. It should be obvious that these recent measures on us is to keep us in place
They dangled the VISA in front of us just to get us to desperately agree to their terms, then they return the visa with a fee attached to it. Its another demonstration of power, just like over the weekend.
I feel like I'm in a movie, where the little guy is being shook down by the big boys. But this isn't a movie...this is real life. Our lives. 🤐
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I don't see what your reply has to do with mine at all. Wait are you even from the Caribbean? Because this reads as someone who has no actual idea about the region. Did you ask ai or something?
I'm an American who visits Caribbean islands and coastal cities often (2x in 2024, 2x in 2019, 2017, 2015, 2x in 2014, 2010) but I can delete all my comments as I'm not familiar with these specific nations.
No disrespect but visiting a sandals every few years doesn't really qualify as possessing relevant knowledge.
None of those were in resorts. They were in cities or rental houses in neighborhoods, and I also have lived half of my life in heavily Caribbean cities including redacted for privacy after 5 hrs Apologies if I wasn’t as aware of the realities on the ground. (I’m also really pissed off at Western imperial civilization right now)
You know, if the region wasn't so hungry for US VISAS this wouldn't even need to be discussed.
The terms and conditions for Antigua and Dominica doesn't event make sense. Listen to this, the US is requiring these islands to post bonds of up to $15k USD, which does not even result in a guaranteed VISA success, and they even limited those who have to only enter through 3 airports: JFK, Boston and Washington????
Like in what way is this benefitting the everyday citizen of Dominica and Antigua? Any islander who has this kind of money should not be placing this in a bond, just to post Instagram pics of them in New York, like wtf.
And then on top of this, these islands have to agree to take in asylum seekers? They cant even properly take care of their own citizens, but theyre taking in asylum seekers?
And the fact that these countries "allegedly" agreed to this tells me that it's a set of politicians that just want to secure their VISA status, because I have yet to see how this benefits any everyday citizen within these islands.
I wouldn't be surprised if that detail about the bonds was withheld from the Caribbean PMs, until after they agreed to the first part.
It's quite obviously disadvantageous to the smaller territories. But what it really is, is a very public and frightening exercise of power and dominance.
A territory much larger than any of ours, just had its leader removed from office, by an external entity, and the whole thing took less than 6 hrs.
To bring such a negotiation immediately after a show of military force- I think any leader of a small nation would be frightened.
Even Mia Mottley has been uncharacteristically quiet in these recent times.
And the fact they they are going to each island one by one, also seems like a deliberate strategy to keep us divided, because each nation that hasn't been called yet, is too afraid to say anything, because they don't want to be next.
They're gonna get pressured into accepting more and more until our islands are filled with deportees. Dominica has 60K people and I think those numbers are inflated. We are going to get overwhelmed very very quickly.
I definitely know a couple Dominicans who left after (I think) Marie and who live in Lucia now. I wouldn’t be surprised if 60k is high. Even a couple hundred or thousand people would drastically change the cultural fabric of Dominica.
On the airport entry point, does Antigua have flights to other USA cities?
You know what concerns me. How our region is so quick to sign deals and run with it.
We should be negotiating as a bloc through Caricom, as stuff like this has implications for us all. None of this side deal nonsense.
True but look at the regions imports and those that do export, look at where it goes to. We've been in an economic headlock long before any Naval fleet started sailing and created a military headlock.
It is hard being a Caribbean island and just trying to mind our own business and survive!
Have we been trying to deepen ties with hegemonies that are actually willing to help us ?
Of course we have !
Now look where its landed us? Straight in the crosshairs of competing hegemonies with no power of agency whilst they force these measures onto us.
Some people are taking this as an opportunity to score petty political points. But wake up people. It doesn’t matter which of our parties were in power. None of us have any negotiating power against a hegemony when it decides to pressure us.
And pressure us, they have.
And before anyone laughs and says I'm glad it's not my country please, don't be tricked into an isolationist mindset, because isolating us, IS the strategy.
Its obvious that this is aimed at weakening Caribbean unity and crippling our agency/ independence.
What can we do? I don't know. We don't hold the cards here. 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🙇♂️🙆♂️
As a Lucian I know full well we’re on the list next, the OECS countries are just alike. The only leader I could potentially see from CARICOM standing against it loudly is Mia since she’s very loudly decolonislist. St. Lucia’s tourism these days is primarily US, while Barbados has a better mix of UK tourists.
Even Mia Motley went quiet after the weekend. Can you blame her?
Such an unprovoked show of force right in our back yard waters is DEEPLY FRIGHTENING.
Especially since all the larger international organizations seem to be powerless to protect anyone. Who is we little CARICOM to make any bold statements now ?
All of our prime ministers spent the last few months begging them not to do it.. and yet they still did.
Then immediately after showing force of power...they came at our territories with the visa restrictions / refugee deal. Negotiate ? lol. More like: if the boss says jump, we say how high
https://preview.redd.it/2gp3p4w5btcg1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9c39960df1008599f8d32135bb93d02661159d4
Just as I predicted
🇬🇩 Grenada here. I don't know what our PM is doing or saying privately, but so far we have avoided being in the direct crosshairs of the Trump administration. Hell, we haven't even given an official response to the U S request for us to host military radar on our soil, a request they made months ago.
Our PM has either god's hand of luck, or an ace up his sleeve that we don't publicly know about (probably related to his very close ties with some African leaders and rich people). OR Rubio's going to wake up one day, realise that he forgot all about little old Grenada and unleash wrath upon us.
Whatever is coming down the pipeline, I can tell you that not only is Grenada NOT in a financial, physical or infrastructural position to take in the US government's migrant overflow, but I can promise you people will be in the streets protesting.
i can only speak for dominica and the answer is fuck no
They got St Kitts too.
It's beginning to feel like we are negotiating under duress.
I think I need to go church more.
Clearly this is something we cannot fight with out own strength. But with God, all things are possible.
No! They cant! Trinidad has around 50000 refugees from Venezuela and we can barely take care of them and our population is 1.5 million people. How the hell are countries with 70k and 120k people going to take in substantial numbers of these people? And don't forget they'll just naturalize there and head over to Europe or somewhere else they don't need a visa for because Antigua and Dominican don't even have an asylum visa to prevent this. They'll just issue residence permits and since most asylum seekers are unemployed people they'll just burden the economies even more.
Naw we full 😌😌😌 we have Venezuelan refugees already