As Britain prepares to empty its jails of foreign criminals and with the United States moving aggressively to dump criminal deportees on other nations, Caribbean officials are holding their breath, deeply worried about what may happen next.
By Tony BestThe worried brows are the most visible and the concerned voices are the loudest in Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, the places with the largest number of English-speaking Caribbean immigrants abroad and therefore the ones, which would be forced to receive the most criminal deportees.
But Caribbean officials in New York share their concern. That?s seen in the fact that Consuls-General in New York City, including Barbados? Jessica Odle, are making a determined pitch to United States Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York, to intervene to reduce the flow of criminal aliens to the region.
Jamaica, which has been forced to absorb at least 10 000 criminal aliens in the past decade from the United States, Canada, and Britain is bracing itself for the arrival of convicted killers, rapists, drug traffickers and other hardened and sophisticated criminals.
It may have to accept as many as 1 000 Jamaicans from Britain within the next few weeks and months.
The United States is expected to deport even more to Jamaica by the end of the year.
?Our position is that we are seeking additional information, documentary proof of who are those people,? said a senior official in Jamaica?s Ministry of National Security in Kingston.
Appropiate provisions
?We need to be satisfied that they are all Jamaicans and we will also need to know the nature of their offences for which they were imprisoned so that we can make appropriate security provisions upon their arrival.?
Like those in Britain, United States immigration authorities and prison officials have stepped up their campaign to deport ?criminal aliens? and Jamaicans along with immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guyana are at the top of the Caribbean?s list.
?We are really concerned about the situation because many of these people have tenuous links to our countries in the Caribbean and they are bringing back the kind of skills in the area of crime that would hurt us, not help,? said a Jamaican diplomat in the United States.
Sonia Johnny, St Lucia?s Ambassador in Washington, shares that worry.
?We have been in negotiations with United States officials about the impact of criminal deportees on our countries but the most we can get out of them in response is that they are following the law,? she said. ?We have raised it with officials of the administration and with members of the United States Congress but after September 11, 2001, some of them are not in a mood to listen.?
Just last month, several Caribbean cabinet ministers and their advisers met in Florida with members of the United States House of Representatives and warned about the devastating impact of the unchecked flood of deportees. Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia and Barbados were among those around the table with the Democratic and Republican Congresspeople.
?We raised these matters with the Congressional representatives because of the serious problems they are causing all of us in the Caribbean, some countries more so than others,? said Johnny.
What?s also worrying Caribbean nations is evidence of growing links between drugs, gunrunning and violence and many states fear that unless the flow of deportees declines, the situation can become extremely dangerous.
?Quite recently it was announced that there were more foreign inmates in British jails than they were citizens of Britain in prison, hence the government?s decision to send many of the convicted felons to their respective places of birth,? said Dame Billie Miller, Barbados? Minister of Foreign affairs.
?All of the Caribbean states are going to be affected in one way or another. It may be a matter of degree because Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have the largest groups of immigrants and hence would be expected to have the highest rates of deportees. But we can?t say that because Jamaica, for instance, must take the most that their problem isn?t shared by us. We in Barbados must be concerned about what's happening.?
As in the case of Britain, the criminals being sent back from the United States have spent time in jail for murder, manslaughter, armed robbery, rape, assault, drug and firearm possession and document fraud.
?This situation is quite serious, not simply for Jamaica but for everyone in the Caricom area,? said Dame Billie.
