-but future still hazy, no common regional position

There has been a reduction in the number of Guyanese being deported from Barbados, recent reports indicate, seven weeks after that country enforced an immigration policy which stirred region-wide debate about illegal immigrants.

From the time the David Thompson-led administration announced its policy on May 5, deportations recorded by the local immigration authorities had risen to a total of 53 as at the end of June. However senior immigration sources have said that there has since been a reduction, adding that there is no indication that many of the persons returning from Barbados were deported.

Barbados’s policy dictates that those Caricom nationals who entered Barbados before December 31, 2005 and have been residing there without appropriate documentation for eight or more years will be eligible for consideration for regularization provided they presented themselves for consideration between June 1 and December 1. However, they must meet stipulated conditions, which include a full criminal background check. Those who fall outside this eight-year span and who have overstayed their time will be asked to leave; those who do not leave voluntarily will be deported.

Barbados has argued that a person is only deported when his or her passport has been stamped “Deported”. However, in addition to this condition local authorities class any person whose travel document was handed to the airline staff by another country’s immigration officer and then presented to the authorities here upon arrival, as a deportee.

It was on this basis that a senior immigration source tallied deportees, adding that while persons have been returning home recently, only few have been treated in that manner.

Contacted, Commissioner of Police Henry Greene promised to provide figures to this newspaper shortly.

Meanwhile, Guyana’s Honorary Consul to Barbados Norman Faria said that he has acted on instructions from Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues and has since compiled reports of alleged ill-treatment meted out to Guyanese by Barbadian immigration authorities.

He told Stabroek News last week that those reports were made prior to and after Thompson’s visit here and have been sent to the minister.

When asked whether he has been able to meet representatives of the Barbadian government to bring those complaints to their attention, Faria said he could not give any more information at this time.

At the recently concluded 30th Meeting of Caricom heads, the issue was on the front burner since in the weeks preceding the forum, stinging criticisms against the policy were issued forcing heads to discuss the issue or come to some consensus as to how it will be dealt with.

It is not clear whether this was achieved since a communiqué coming after the meeting had no indication of any agreed procedure on dealing with the issue or any satisfaction expressed by the heads, who the issue mostly concerned, that their citizens would be treated with the dignity they have asked for.

Early morning raids on the homes of Guyanese who have overstayed their time and remained undocumented have marred the Barbados policy.

Two persons  recounted to this newspaper about being taken out of their beds, just being able to grab a few items and quickly whisked to the Grantley Adams International Airport and sent home. They said they have left valuables behind in Barbados, which they accumulated over the years.

Following the meeting, Rodrigues had told Stabroek News that she and her Barbados counterpart Senator Maxine McLean have agreed to improve information sharing. Rodrigues told Stabroek News that she has not been made aware of any recent raids followed by injustices being meted out to Guyanese but persons were still making queries at the consulate in Barbados. As far as she knew, she said, there were no new raids with reports of ill-treatment meted out to Guyanese.

At a press conference held here in Guyana, Barbados PM David Thompson unveiled a series of proposals for dealing with the issue. These included the willingness of his government to consider the readmission of persons who have overstayed their time through a protocol or memorandum of understanding.

He had said too that he was also prepared to look carefully at a guest worker programme in areas where the labour market may justify it in future.

In addition, he recommended the establishment of a formal mechanism for regular consultation and information exchange between Chief Immigration Officers and senior personnel on both sides.

The setting up of a High Commission in Bridgetown staffed with the appropriate number of professionals to handle the increasing consular needs of the Guyanese population in Barbados, Thompson said, was also necessary. His proposals came against the background of an insistence that his government had to take interim action to regularize undocumented individuals in Barbados in the absence of a consensus Caricom decision to move to full freedom of movement.

There has been no word from officialdom as to whether there has been any movement towards implementing any of these proposals.
Controversy

The Guyanese population in Barbados remains significant. However, whether the undocumented ones who have since remained are in a better position than those who have already been sent home in the context of a more principled approach to their status is a question which remains unanswered.

A question which also remains is whether all the arguments put forward for the demand for better treatment wherever Guyanese travel in the region, puts them in a better position.

Amid the controversy over individual immigration policies, heads have only re-affirmed their commitment to free movement across the region as set out in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. They also firmly accepted that migrants who fall outside the declared categories are entitled to humane treatment, according to President Bharrat Jagdeo who chaired the meeting. He made the announcement at a late night press conference at the meeting’s end.

Most of the leaders who attended the recently concluded meeting in Georgetown had their say on the immigration matter with comments ranging from the right to humane treatment to the argument that free movement of persons did not mean that persons have the right to live in another Caricom country illegally.

However, it is unclear whether the heads of those countries whose citizens are hard hit by the new Barbados immigration policy including President Jagdeo and St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves are satisfied that enough was done towards assuring them that their citizens will not be affected.

Prior to the press conference which signalled the official end of the meeting, Gonsalves had told reporters that the re-affirmations by the community have in essence recognized that certain minimum standards must be adhered to.

Saying that there was no need for him to go into any details as to what would fall short of those minimum standards, Gonsalves declared that in every single Caribbean country, some more than others, migrants are taken up and treated in a manner which is not humane.

“I will not expect somebody in St Vincent, an immigration official, to go and knock on somebody’s door at 3 am in respect of an immigration offence and tell them that they have to buy a ticket to get out of the country or they would be deported… if my immigration so acts they would be acting contrary to the spirit of the treaty and specifically Article 45, and also international obligations,” Gonsalves said while stressing that he was speaking hypothetically.

He emphasized that “everybody has agreed on” a regional position on the issue. Therefore, he noted that any immigration official who acts in such a manner is acting unlawfully and contrary to the public policy of each government in Caricom.

However, Gonsalves had pointed out that it was not up to the region to work out the necessary protocol which would adhere to the standards agreed on given that they have acknowledged that the spirit of the treaty also addresses certain minimum standards of treatment as encoded in international law and best practices.
Migration

sentiments

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer in his statements on regional immigration on July 2, had said that Antigua could not sustain a liberal policy amidst the growing threats posed by cross-border criminal activity and the challenges of the global financial crisis. According to him, continuing such an arrangement is counter-productive to his government’s policy of providing the greatest good for its citizens.

President Jagdeo had said that while countries have a sovereign right to determine their own immigration policies the maltreatment of Caricom citizens is repugnant to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas as well as to basic human decency. This, he stated strongly, must be roundly deplored.

Jagdeo also  restated his position on the issue saying that if nationals were  treated in such a manner by their own people then the region could not  expect a third country to receive its citizens in any better way.

He said too that the region’s work will remain incomplete until the day a child born anywhere in the Caribbean can wake up to a Caribbean minus boundaries and nationalities.

“We as leaders can set the example for such a glorious day,” Jagdeo said and he made the point that the average Caribbean traveller will assess the integration movement based on the ease with which s/he can travel from one member state to another within the single space.

“…if he sees himself as encountering more hurdles in traversing this space than the visitor from overseas his faith in integration is shaken, sometimes permanently…, the President stated.

Prior to the meeting too, several Caribbean media reports referred to the comments made by St Lucian Prime Minister Stephenson King who was quoted as saying that “he wants his fellow Caricom leaders to take urgent action to facilitate the free movement of people throughout the region.”

Pointing to the dissatisfaction raised by Gonsalves with regard to the treatment meted out to his countrymen, King said he felt that Gonsalves had a basis for observing that such actions go against the spirit of Caricom’s   regional integration process.
Policy

Senior regional integrationist, Sir Shridath Ramphal also added his voice to the issue stating that some sort of managed migration policy would have to be worked out so that some countries would not become submerged with migrants.

However, when he spoke at the inauguration of the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers in Port of Spain recently he said he felt it was sad that the Caribbean is experiencing a period when both policies and practices are deepening divisions and he cautioned that “we forget our oneness at our peril.”

In an apparent reference to the targeting of illegal Caricom nationals in Barbados, some of whom have been rounded up in early morning raids, the Guyanese-born former Commonwealth secretary-general said, “It is always a sadness when, however propelled, our societies are caught in a downward spiral of separateness with fellow West Indians cast as ‘outsiders’.

“We are at such a time, and both policies and practices are deepening Caribbean divides.”

He also noted that the great Barbadian regionalist and former  prime minister, Errol Barrow, had reminded 23 years ago that: “If we have sometimes failed to comprehend the essence of the regional integration movement, the truth is that thousands of ordinary Caribbean people do in fact live that reality every day. . . . We are a family . . . and this fact of regional togetherness is lived every day by ordinary West Indian men and women in their comings and goings.”

Warning that “Caricom is at risk”, he added that few are blameless.

Professor Clive Thomas of the University of Guyana, whose views were sought by this newspaper, had said he felt the Thompson administration’s targeting of Caricom nationals in its crackdown on illegal immigrants was an act of profiling. He said he felt the action needed to be met with the strongest protest.

Thomas voiced his disapproval particularly over reports that the homes of illegal migrants are being raided, calling it “degrading and discriminatory.” He said he also felt that it violates the spirit of the CSME [Caricom Single Market and Economy].

“Caricom has worked to promote an agreement aimed at creating a single economic space and so this is very offensive to Caricom. We have a responsibility to speak out. We cannot allow the Barbados government to get away with this. We cannot condone such action, it is degrading, dehumanising, indiscriminate and inhumane,” he insisted.

Thomas also questioned why it was that only Caricom nationals were being targeted when nationals from other countries also overstayed their welcome in Barbados. “This is profiling and this is very offensive,” he argued.

Sir Shridath said he believed there were genuine problems with migration in the region since it was not being managed and regulated.

“I don’t think there would be such a fuss if there had been an approach at the level of the heads about the management of migration,” he observed.  Ramphal who feels strongly that political will was needed for there to be proper implementation of agreements made at the level of Caricom, said too that a regional approach to the issue of immigration was a real challenge.

However he cautioned, “No one country should bear a disproportionate volume of the migration process and this is what has happened in Barbados… However I believe that what they are saying is that they want a managed migration programme and not no migration,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said he felt it was improper for any country in Caricom to take a unilateral position on the issue of intra-regional migration and use the issue of sovereignty as its defence.

In a direct reference to the migration policy adopted by Barbados, Golding told reporters that he was sure that heads could sit and work out any specific difficulties countries are experiencing.

“Let’s work them out. Let’s not go off each on our own frolic to take independent unilateral positions. A community cannot be run that way, we are all part of a community,” he urged.
Hostile

The Barbadian opposition had warned that the new immigration policy had already begun to give Barbados a bad reputation in the region and could possibly affect the economy.

“A government is entitled to implement strong policies. These policies, however, must be applied consistently, fairly and humanely,” Mia Mottley had she said in a statement.

“A hostile environment for immigrants must not be an unwelcome environment for Caribbean visitors. The focus must be simply who have arrived and who have never been documented . . .

“Further, that when people are asked to leave that they are given the time to pack up their belongings and leave in a manner that does not reduce them to feeling like criminals.”