There is grow­ing un­ease among Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als liv­ing in the Unit­ed States dur­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term, as many fear mass de­por­ta­tions.

While one in­di­vid­ual, T&T im­mi­gra­tion ac­tivist Ravi Rag­bir, re­ceived clemen­cy from for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden on his fi­nal day in of­fice, Solange James—whose broth­er faced de­por­ta­tion dur­ing Trump’s first term—warns that no one is tru­ly safe.

Dur­ing his in­au­gu­ra­tion ad­dress on Jan­u­ary 20, Trump de­clared: “All il­le­gal en­try will im­me­di­ate­ly be halt­ed, and we will be­gin the process of re­turn­ing mil­lions and mil­lions of crim­i­nal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

He signed a se­ries of ex­ec­u­tive or­ders to en­force this di­rec­tive.

But Solange and her broth­er Trevor’s ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing his first term (2017–2021) paint­ed a dif­fer­ent pic­ture.

The sib­lings grew up in San Fer­nan­do be­fore mi­grat­ing to the US, earn­ing de­grees, and build­ing their lives. Trevor at­tend­ed St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, Solange went to St Joseph’s Con­vent, and their younger broth­er at­tend­ed Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege.

They left for the US af­ter com­plet­ing sec­ondary school.

Trevor pur­sued high­er ed­u­ca­tion in North Car­oli­na, where he built a life. He is mar­ried, and his wife has two chil­dren who, at the time of his de­ten­tion, were just four and two years old.

He was work­ing as a mar­ket­ing ex­ec­u­tive at the Mar­riott Ho­tel in Raleigh, North Car­oli­na, when Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) de­tained him on June 5, 2019.

“It was not at­tached to a crim­i­nal case or any­thing of the sort. They said that he did not show up for an im­mi­gra­tion court mat­ter. And I’m go­ing to al­so add that he wasn’t aware that he had an im­mi­gra­tion court mat­ter,” Solange said.

Ac­cord­ing to Solange, Trevor spent nine months in a de­ten­tion cen­tre in Lump­kin, Geor­gia—miles away from his home—while she, his fam­i­ly, and his at­tor­neys fought for his re­lease.

He was even­tu­al­ly freed on a US$5,000 cash bond on March 13, 2020, and his re­moval or­der was dis­missed by the courts in Jan­u­ary 2023.

Now, with Trump be­gin­ning his sec­ond term, Solange re­mains deeply con­cerned.

“I don’t feel like I am even safe as a nat­u­ralised cit­i­zen.”

She de­scribed the or­deal as deeply trau­mat­ic for her fam­i­ly, and urged oth­ers to be cau­tious.

“I wish I could hon­est­ly tell you some­thing that would sound like a mes­sage of hope. But I feel like my words fall so far short. You tru­ly do not have equal pro­tec­tion un­der the law here as a green­card hold­er.”

Ravi Rag­bir’s con­tin­ued fight for im­mi­grants

Mean­while, in New York, Ravi Rag­bir who was de­tained by ICE on Jan­u­ary 11, 2018, faced de­por­ta­tion since 2006 af­ter serv­ing two and a half years in prison for wire fraud fol­low­ing his 2001 con­vic­tion.

Orig­i­nal­ly from T&T, he mi­grat­ed to the US in 1991 and be­came a law­ful per­ma­nent res­i­dent in 1994. Since his re­lease, he has ded­i­cat­ed him­self to ad­vo­cat­ing for vul­ner­a­ble im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties in New York and New Jer­sey.

Rag­bir ad­mit­ted that he fears his ac­tivism could once again make him a tar­get for ICE, but he re­mains com­mit­ted to his work.

This in­cludes his fight for US vet­er­an Mar­lon Par­ris, who is cur­rent­ly fac­ing de­por­ta­tion.

“My goal is to stop peo­ple from be­ing de­port­ed. But the cri­sis is to get him re­leased from de­ten­tion as we work to stop his de­por­ta­tion.”

Rag­bir al­so warned T&T na­tion­als—par­tic­u­lar­ly those in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty—to be ex­tra cau­tious, as they could be tar­get­ed by ICE.

He urged those el­i­gi­ble to ap­ply for US cit­i­zen­ship, as soon as pos­si­ble, and called on the T&T gov­ern­ment to en­sure that de­por­ta­tion laws are up­held cor­rect­ly.

On Wednes­day, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said, “we do not stand to re­ceive the prospect of mass de­por­ta­tions at this time.”