Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said recently on Local Radio, that his Government is receiving great difficulty in obtaining information from the United States Government about the history of individuals deported back to the island.
He said that all kinds of reasons are given to the Government none of which makes any sense to him, a complaint he highlighted as affecting all of the Governments in the region.
Information obtained by News784, shows that,{ICE } U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which enforces federal laws governing border control, customs, trade and immigration to promote homeland security and public safety, deported back to St Vincent for 2015 {9} individuals.
The issue of deportation has engrossed the minds of Vincentians, following the discovery and arrest of Veron Primus, for the Kidnapping of Mewanah Hadaway, and the shocking charge of murder for sharleen Greaves, a former real estate agent who was killed last year {2015}.
Veron Primus who turned a person of interest in a New York Cold case, was deported back to St Vincent in May of 2015, after serving time in US prison.
Gonsalves said that the only information local authorities would receive, is the name of an individual and age, but no information concerning why that individual was being deported. He said that Government tries to do a system of tracking when these persons are returned home, but it would be will very helpful if background information is given.
The United States has deported thousands of convicted criminals to the Caribbean annually since 1996, when Congress mandated that every non-citizen sentenced to a year or more in prison be kicked out of the country upon release.
In all, the US is responsible for about three-quarters of the region’s returning criminal deportees, with the United Kingdom and Canada accounting for most of the other ex-cons arriving in the islands.
In the Caribbean, governments say deportees are exacerbating crime in nations with high levels of violence such as Jamaica. On the smaller islands such as Grenada, once considered idyllic havens from gang violence, officials say the returning deportees are partly to blame for increasingly bold and sophisticated crimes and homicide rates soaring to record levels.
The United States has in the past attempted to defuse tensions with island governments by exploring programs to help them reintegrate deportees. During a visit to Barbados in June of 2010, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, the US was no longer ignoring complaints that have topped the Caribbean’s diplomatic agenda for more than a decade.
The British Newspaper {Independent} stated in the early summer of 2010,that US officials say privately,the deportations cannot be blamed for the increase in violent crime, but declined to discuss the issue on the record, saying the US does not want to hurt relations with Caribbean governments with which it cooperates on other issues.
