Trinidad Outlines Reasons For Denying Jamaicans Entry To Country

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Trinidad and Tobago Government says it had pre­vent­ed 12 Jamaicans from enter­ing the island late last month because they were “deemed like­ly to become charges on pub­lic funds”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a state­ment said that Foreign and Caricom Affairs Minister Dennis Moses met with Jamaica’s High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, David Prendergast on Tuesday to dis­cuss the issue.
“All relat­ed issues were dis­cussed in an open, frank and cour­te­ous fash­ion befit­ting the strong rela­tion­ship between both coun­tries,” the state­ment noted.

Last month, the Jamaica Government said it was prob­ing alle­ga­tions that two of their nation­als were ill-treat­ed on their arrival here and remind­ed Jamaicans that there is a Caricom (Caribbean Community) Complaints Procedure which may be used to ensure that nation­als who have been denied entry, detained or mis­treat­ed at the ports of entry of oth­er Caricom states.Jamaica said it was advis­ing its nation­als that they could lodge com­plaints with the CARICOM office estab­lished for that and may also file a for­mal com­plaint with the min­istry on return to Jamaica.

The com­plaint forms are avail­able on arrival at the air­ports in Jamaica. Once a com­plaint is received, an inves­ti­ga­tion is con­duct­ed with the rel­e­vant author­i­ties in the CARICOM coun­try con­cerned; and Jamaicans may also make reports direct­ly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade,” the state­ment added.

But Port of Spain said that Moses had received a report on the refusal of entry of the 12 Jamaicans who arrived at Piarco International Airport on Caribbean Airlines flights BW459 at 7:53 pm and BW455 at 8:43 pm and depart­ed for Kingston, Jamaica at 7:50 am on March 22.

It said that Section 8 (1) (h) of the Immigration Act denies entry to per­sons who may be deemed like­ly to become charges on pub­lic funds.

All of the pas­sen­gers were denied entry in accor­dance with this Section,” the state­ment said, adding “in keep­ing with Section 21 of the Immigration Act, both the pas­sen­gers and Airline were duly noti­fied and served with the rel­e­vant notices”.

It said that “at approx­i­mate­ly 11:00 pm, the pas­sen­gers were tak­en into the care of the air­line – Caribbean Airlines Limited, to await an out­ward-bound flight to Kingston, Jamaica, on Caribbean Airlines flight BW414 at 7:50 am on 22nd March, 2016.

Sections 32 and 34 of the Act out­line the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the air­line when pas­sen­gers are refused entry. Section 34 © specif­i­cal­ly man­dates the com­pa­ny to treat all such per­sons in a humane man­ner and to pro­vide them with meals.

Accordingly, they were tak­en to the Customs and Excise sec­tion of the air­port for a bag­gage check, then escort­ed upstairs to the depar­ture lounge area where they remained in the pres­ence of the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny con­tract­ed by Caribbean Airlines.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Jamaicans “were served a meal and drinks and were pro­vid­ed with blan­kets by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the air­line in keep­ing with usu­al air­line procedure.

They had access to a water cool­er and were escort­ed to the wash­room facil­i­ties on the low­er lev­el of the ter­mi­nal build­ing upon request, as repairs to those facil­i­ties in the depar­ture lounge were then being undertaken.

All depart­ing pas­sen­gers are direct­ed to this facil­i­ty on the low­er lev­el pend­ing the com­ple­tion of the repair works,” the state­ment added.

In 2013, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) award­ed Jamaican Shanique Myrie pecu­niary dam­ages in the sum of BDS$2,240 (One BDS dol­lar = US$0.50 cents) and non-pecu­niary dam­ages to the tune of BDS$75,000 after she had tak­en the Barbados Government to court alleg­ing that when she trav­elled to that Caricom coun­try on March 14, 2011 she was dis­crim­i­nat­ed against because of her nation­al­i­ty, sub­ject­ed to a body cav­i­ty search, detained overnight in a cell and deport­ed to Jamaica the fol­low­ing day.

Myrie also claimed that she was sub­ject­ed to deroga­to­ry remarks by a Barbadian Immigration offi­cer.Trinidad out­lines rea­sons for deny­ing Jamaicans entry to country

One thought on “Trinidad Outlines Reasons For Denying Jamaicans Entry To Country

  1. Now, what is hap­pen­ing to the Jamaican peo­ple is a repu­di­a­tion of the cul­ture, philoso­phies, and world­view of its not so lit­er­ate and bel­liger­ent citizens!

    Now, you see that oth­er Caribbean islands are deny­ing Jamaicans entry through their ports as if they have some seri­ous illness. 

    The Jamaican peo­ple are known by the world as a peo­ple who don’t want to abide by the laws of their island, much less oth­er juris­dic­tion. They don’t want the crim­i­nals influ­ence to sweep into their coun­tries, sys­tem, and cul­ture because it is infectious. 

    Most of these peo­ple are depor­tee from America, Canada, and England, so they want to use the skills they’ve honed in these coun­tries to destroy the fab­ric of these laws abid­ing coun­tries and infect its cit­i­zens with their behavior.

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