Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has stepped up crit­i­cism of the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cus­ing it of fail­ing to act on con­cerns raised by Unit­ed King­dom au­thor­i­ties over a surge in asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions by Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als.

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day dur­ing de­bate on the Ad­vance Pas­sen­ger In­for­ma­tion and Pas­sen­ger Name Record (APIS/PNR) Bill, Sobers out­lined what he de­scribed as a pat­tern of in­ac­tion de­spite re­peat­ed warn­ings and high-lev­el en­gage­ments.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, af­ter all of these meet­ings, there was noth­ing tan­gi­bly done by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion to al­lay the fears of the British Gov­ern­ment re­gard­ing the sig­nif­i­cant rise in asy­lum seek­ers trav­el­ling to the UK,” Sobers said.

He ref­er­enced a se­ries of meet­ings in­volv­ing for­mer high com­mis­sion­er Vish­nu Dhan­paul, for­mer Trade and In­dus­try min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, not­ing that while dis­cus­sions were held, they yield­ed no con­crete re­sults.

“Al­though his stint was short, he at­tempt­ed to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion. Sen­a­tor Dhan­paul, in his ca­pac­i­ty as High Com­mis­sion­er, al­so sought to en­gage of­fi­cials from the UK Home Of­fice,” Sobers said.

He added that Gopee-Scoon met with UK of­fi­cials on March 10, 2025, fol­lowed by a meet­ing be­tween Young and British rep­re­sen­ta­tives on March 11, 2025.

Sobers said the is­sue car­ries sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial im­pli­ca­tions for the Unit­ed King­dom.

“To put that in­to con­text, once a per­son lands on British soil and claims asy­lum, the British Gov­ern­ment is ob­lig­at­ed to process that ap­pli­ca­tion,” he said.

“Test­ing the ve­rac­i­ty of each claim costs the British Gov­ern­ment—and, by ex­ten­sion, the British peo­ple—ap­prox­i­mate­ly £65,000 per ap­pli­ca­tion.”

He not­ed that con­cerns es­ca­lat­ed in late 2024 as asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions surged.

“The UK Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed that the Home Of­fice ob­served a spike in ap­pli­ca­tions from Trinidad and To­ba­go—from 240 to 350 per year by De­cem­ber 2024. The claims were de­scribed as large­ly op­por­tunis­tic and, in most cas­es, not le­git­i­mate, and were there­fore de­nied,” Sobers said.

He added that UK au­thor­i­ties al­so raised con­cerns about the po­ten­tial en­try of gang mem­bers or in­di­vid­u­als with crim­i­nal back­grounds, warn­ing that visa re­stric­tions could fol­low.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go was aware of these de­vel­op­ments for months, yet no sig­nif­i­cant ac­tion was tak­en by the then ad­min­is­tra­tion. This left the British Gov­ern­ment with lit­tle al­ter­na­tive but to im­ple­ment a visa regime, which is the is­sue be­fore us to­day,” he said.

Cen­tral to Sobers’ ar­gu­ment was the fail­ure to im­ple­ment the Cari­com IM­PACS Ad­vance Pas­sen­ger In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go would not be in this po­si­tion had we adopt­ed the Cari­com IM­PACS APIS leg­is­la­tion when it was in­tro­duced in 2024,” he said, adding that gaps in pas­sen­ger screen­ing al­lowed in­di­vid­u­als to ex­ploit trav­el routes.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul re­ject­ed the crit­i­cism, de­fend­ing both his tenure as High Com­mis­sion­er and the ac­tions of staff at the High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don.

He said un­der­stand­ing the is­sue re­quires clar­i­ty on the struc­ture of the High Com­mis­sion, which in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the min­istries of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Trade, and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Dhan­paul high­light­ed the pres­ence of key per­son­nel, in­clud­ing a se­cu­ri­ty at­taché, a com­mer­cial of­fi­cer and for­eign ser­vice of­fi­cers, all ap­point­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pro­vid­ing doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence, he said the re­sponse to the is­sue dat­ed back to No­vem­ber 2024 and ref­er­enced a Jan­u­ary 2025 let­ter from Cari­com IM­PACS warn­ing that a visa regime was be­ing con­tem­plat­ed for March 2025.

He al­so de­tailed a Jan­u­ary 27, 2025 meet­ing with UK of­fi­cials, dur­ing which con­cerns about ris­ing ap­pli­ca­tions and as­so­ci­at­ed costs were raised.

“Mr Brock­le­hurst in­di­cat­ed there was a no­tice­able and wor­ry­ing trend, with asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions ris­ing from an av­er­age of 15 per month in 2023 to a peak of 106 in De­cem­ber 2024,” Dhan­paul said.

“He ex­plained that the trend was par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing giv­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rel­a­tive­ly small pop­u­la­tion and that it placed sig­nif­i­cant strain on re­sources at ports of en­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly Lon­don Gatwick Air­port, where many ap­pli­ca­tions are processed.”

De­spite this, Dhan­paul main­tained that prop­er pro­ce­dures were fol­lowed.

“The High Com­mis­sion ad­hered to all re­quired pro­to­cols. There is a clear chrono­log­i­cal record of events, and we are sat­is­fied that the ap­pro­pri­ate steps were tak­en,” he said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the re­al­i­ties of pub­lic ser­vice, he said he would not al­low staff to be un­fair­ly crit­i­cised.

“I don’t mind tak­ing blame—I have been a pub­lic ser­vant for more than half my life—but I must de­fend the of­fi­cers who car­ried out their du­ties prop­er­ly,” he said.

Dhan­paul al­so ex­pressed frus­tra­tion at the out­come.

“We are deal­ing with the Unit­ed King­dom, and Trinidad and To­ba­go is among the coun­tries that con­tributed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to its de­vel­op­ment, yet this is the po­si­tion we now face,” he said.

He added: “A visa re­quire­ment to en­ter a coun­try that we helped build.”