Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to take the nec­es­sary ac­tions to pre­vent the re­cent roll­out of new visa re­quire­ments for the trav­el to the Unit­ed King­dom.

The Unit­ed King­dom yes­ter­day an­nounced that Trinida­di­ans seek­ing to trav­el that coun­try will now re­quired visas.

“Row­ley and his Gov­ern­ment have be­trayed, be­lit­tled and bro­ken our cit­i­zens with their decade of fail­ure which has now led to these mea­sures. For years, we warned Row­ley about his as­so­ci­a­tions with drug traf­fick­ing gov­ern­ments and his fail­ure to deal with our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia.

She said the Op­po­si­tion found “no joy” in the an­nounce­ment, which stemmed from not on­ly an in­crease in asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions from T&T na­tion­als, with claims ris­ing from an av­er­age of 49 a year be­tween 2015 and 2019 to 439 last year, but al­so mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment of changes in im­mi­gra­tion rules pre­sent­ed to the UK par­lia­ment, “Trinidad and To­ba­go’s visa sta­tus will be kept un­der re­view; par­tic­u­lar­ly with re­gards to whether the visa in­tro­duc­tion af­fects the num­ber of in­di­vid­u­als claim­ing asy­lum from with­in the UK and the in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not sur­prised by the ac­tion tak­en by the UK.

“It must be put on record that the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed King­dom can­not be fault­ed for such mea­sures. Con­cern­ing the num­ber of asy­lum seek­ers, some of these asy­lum seek­ers are gang mem­bers and crim­i­nals who are run­ning their crim­i­nal op­er­a­tions in T&T from the UK. That is the mad­ness that this PNM Gov­ern­ment has al­lowed to hap­pen. That is why the UK act­ed.”

She not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty to ad­dress crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties has rip­pled be­yond T&T’s bor­ders. “Once again, the PNM’s fail­ure to deal with the vi­o­lent bloody crime cri­sis in T&T has neg­a­tive in­ter­na­tion­al im­pli­ca­tions on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. In a des­per­ate at­tempt at pub­lic re­la­tions gim­mick­ry, Row­ley broad­cast to the world at a Cari­com event that there are ter­ror­ists in Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mit­ting crimes. He was ably sup­port­ed by fool­ish busi­ness cham­bers and oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties de­spite the UNC warn­ing them of the neg­a­tive reper­cus­sions of that state­ment. Well, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty lis­tened.”

She al­so cau­tioned that the lat­est visa ad­just­ment could be the be­gin­ning of fur­ther in­ter­na­tion­al fall­outs.

“To­day we put T&T on guard, this may just be the be­gin­ning of our pos­si­ble in­ter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion if the PNM and Young regime are re-elect­ed.”

Grif­fith: Visa re­stric­tions avoid­able

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith mean­while said the UK visa ad­just­ment could have been avoid­ed with “bet­ter lead­er­ship.”

In a me­dia re­lease, Grif­fith said, “The re­cent an­nounce­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als will now re­quire a visa to en­ter the Unit­ed King­dom is a di­rect re­sult of a fail­ure in ef­fec­tive diplo­ma­cy and proac­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment by Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds. This sit­u­a­tion was en­tire­ly avoid­able—and his­to­ry has al­ready proven that.” Ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith, in 2014 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, the UK in­di­cat­ed that T&T, along with nine oth­er coun­tries, faced im­mi­nent visa re­stric­tions due to sim­i­lar se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, mi­gra­tion risks, and in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions.

He said at that time, he, as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter ini­ti­at­ed high-lev­el diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment with the British High Com­mis­sion on the is­sue.

Grif­fith added, “Hinds has al­lowed the sit­u­a­tion to de­te­ri­o­rate—plac­ing an un­due bur­den on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, busi­ness­es, and the tourism sec­tor. Had he ex­er­cised strong lead­er­ship to what was demon­strat­ed in 2014, Trinidad and To­ba­go would not be fac­ing this cri­sis to­day.”

Grif­fith fur­ther ar­gued that this visa im­po­si­tion was not on­ly about trav­el but al­so a glob­al re­flec­tion of T&T’s weak­ened diplo­mat­ic stand­ing and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­fi­cien­cies.

IR spe­cial­ists weigh in UK visa ad­just­ment

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts have called on Gov­ern­ment to seek a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the un­der­ly­ing caus­es dri­ving peo­ple to seek asy­lum.

For­mer di­rec­tor at the In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions at UWI, Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, said while news of the UK’s was not sur­pris­ing, it ex­posed the need for clar­i­ty on caus­es of mi­gra­tion.

Dr Gon­za­les, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, not­ed that crime and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties were among the ma­jor rea­sons for cit­i­zens de­part­ing and should not be tak­en light­ly.

“Asy­lum sta­tus re­quires you to prove that you’re be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against and per­se­cut­ed in some form and you have to show some ev­i­dence of that, so I don’t know if these peo­ple go­ing there are en­sur­ing they are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed in some form and I don’t know how they’re show­ing that but that is what is caus­ing this asy­lum sta­tus.”

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions spe­cial­ist, Pro­fes­sor Andy Knight, as­sert­ed that the move re­flect­ed a shift in an ef­fort to safe­guard against de­viant non-na­tion­als.

“It is im­por­tant to re­alise that there will be a six-week tran­si­tion pe­ri­od for those who al­ready hold an elec­tron­ic trav­el au­tho­ri­sa­tion and con­firmed book­ings to the UK ob­tained on or be­fore March 12, 2025. So, Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens in that sit­u­a­tion won’t have to wor­ry about the new pol­i­cy. But for many oth­ers, this is an ir­ri­tant and it tells us a lot about the chang­ing con­di­tions we are fac­ing in what I would call a de­glob­al­i­sa­tion en­vi­ron­ment. It is part of a new nar­ra­tive about the tight­en­ing of bor­ders by the glob­al north to keep out peo­ple they con­sid­er to be un­de­sir­ables. It’s hap­pen­ing not on­ly in the UK.”

Ma­haraj SC: Le­gal pro­ceed­ings won’t be af­fect­ed

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that the new UK visa re­quire­ment will not hin­der le­gal pro­ceed­ings or ac­cess to jus­tice in the UK court.

Ma­haraj yes­ter­day not­ed that re­mote ac­cess to courts will en­sure that le­gal mat­ters con­tin­ue with­out dis­rup­tions.

“I do not see the visa re­quire­ment af­fect­ing the ap­peals or peo­ple pur­su­ing their ap­peals to the Privy Coun­cil if they are liv­ing in Trinidad or if they are in Trinidad be­cause in any event, the Privy Coun­cil al­lows for ap­peals to be done vir­tu­al­ly, as was done dur­ing the COVID 19 pe­ri­od and is be­ing done now.”

How­ev­er, he said those seek­ing in-per­son hear­ings will have to go through the new process linked to the ad­just­ed re­quire­ments.