Sobers: Deportations from UK ongoing, not sudden

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has moved to clar­i­fy re­ports re­gard­ing the repa­tri­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who sought asy­lum in the Unit­ed King­dom, stress­ing that the re­turns did not hap­pen sud­den­ly and were not a sur­prise to the Gov­ern­ment.

Sobers ex­plained that de­por­ta­tions have oc­curred grad­u­al­ly over sev­er­al years as in­di­vid­ual asy­lum claims were processed and re­ject­ed by the UK Home Of­fice.

“The UK has a sys­tem that de­ter­mines whether a claim is bona fide,” Sobers said, not­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions can take months or even years de­pend­ing on com­plex­i­ty.

He re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that hun­dreds of na­tion­als were sent home at once. “It is not that they just pack 700 per­sons on a plane and send them home yes­ter­day. Peo­ple would have been repa­tri­at­ed to Trinidad over a pe­ri­od of time since the claims were made.”

Sobers con­firmed the time­line spans rough­ly from 2023 to the present. He added that the high re­jec­tion rate—pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed be­tween 90 and 97 per cent—was al­ready known to the Gov­ern­ment and the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion and con­tributed to the UK im­pos­ing visa re­quire­ments on Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als in March 2025.

The min­is­ter said the visa pol­i­cy is now un­der pe­ri­od­ic re­view by British au­thor­i­ties and that Trinidad and To­ba­go has tak­en mea­sures to en­cour­age its re­con­sid­er­a­tion.

Among these is pro­posed Ad­vance Pas­sen­ger In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem (APIS) leg­is­la­tion, used suc­cess­ful­ly in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries, in­clud­ing Saint Kitts and Nevis. Sobers de­clined to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails, cit­ing diplo­mat­ic sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

“The UK is a sov­er­eign na­tion. They do it in six-month time­frames, and we await the out­come sub­se­quent to us tak­ing cer­tain box­es on our end,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing fears that some de­por­tees could pose a pub­lic-safe­ty risk, Sobers said he has con­fi­dence in lo­cal law-en­force­ment agen­cies. “I be­lieve the ef­forts and the method­ol­o­gy em­ployed by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice are suf­fi­cient. So I’m not con­cerned.”

He clar­i­fied that while some re­turnees may be con­sid­ered “per­sons of in­ter­est,” they do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have out­stand­ing war­rants. “As far as I am aware, I don’t be­lieve any­body with an ac­tive war­rant would have been able to suc­cess­ful­ly get on a plane,” Sobers said, not­ing that in­ter­na­tion­al screen­ing sys­tems would like­ly pre­vent trav­el in such cas­es.

Sobers al­so con­firmed that Trinidad and To­ba­go is not cur­rent­ly pay­ing for de­por­ta­tions. “At this point in time, it is the UK who bears the cost of the repa­tri­a­tion,” he said. He not­ed that British of­fi­cials es­ti­mate the full cost of pro­cess­ing an asy­lum claim—in­clud­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and re­moval—at ap­prox­i­mate­ly £65,000 per per­son, a fac­tor be­hind the visa re­quire­ment.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said au­thor­i­ties are pre­pared to deal with re­turn­ing na­tion­als and sug­gest­ed that in­di­vid­u­als linked to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty would not evade jus­tice.

“No one any­where runs away af­ter com­mit­ting a crime and thinks they get away,” Alexan­der told Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day. He said in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue re­gard­less of where sus­pects trav­el and that law-en­force­ment agen­cies are mon­i­tor­ing re­turnees.

“Now is the best time for them to re­turn be­cause we are at a point where po­lice con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor and treat with the per­sons com­ing back,” he said. Alexan­der de­clined to pro­vide de­tails on any ap­pre­hen­sions, cit­ing op­er­a­tional sen­si­tiv­i­ty.

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah said while repa­tri­a­tion is a sov­er­eign right, the re­turn of large num­bers of na­tion­als—par­tic­u­lar­ly those linked to crim­i­nal net­works—could pose sig­nif­i­cant risks if not care­ful­ly man­aged.

He urged an in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven in­for­ma­tion-shar­ing mech­a­nism be­tween the UK and Trinidad and To­ba­go, in­clud­ing ad­vance trans­mis­sion of crim­i­nal his­to­ries, risk as­sess­ments, and be­hav­iour­al in­di­ca­tors. With­out such prepa­ra­tion, Heer­ah warned, the coun­try could face re­newed gang ac­tiv­i­ty, re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence, and pres­sure on law-en­force­ment re­sources.

“This sit­u­a­tion must be treat­ed not mere­ly as a mi­gra­tion is­sue, but as a na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ty,” he said, call­ing for stronger re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion through Cari­com to har­monise in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing and joint re­sponse strate­gies.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said the im­pact on lo­cal crime will de­pend heav­i­ly on the back­ground of re­turnees. He not­ed that crim­i­nal his­to­ry checks are key in asy­lum de­ci­sions and that in­di­vid­u­als with doc­u­ment­ed of­fences are of­ten de­nied pro­tec­tion.

“If you’re a known crim­i­nal, the Home Of­fice could eas­i­ly com­mu­ni­cate with the po­lice ser­vice here, and if you’re a crim­i­nal of­fend­er, they’ll send you back,” Seep­er­sad ex­plained.

He warned that time abroad could al­low in­di­vid­u­als to build new crim­i­nal con­nec­tions or ac­quire skills that could lat­er be used lo­cal­ly. Transna­tion­al net­works formed over­seas, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ma­jor mar­kets such as the UK, may al­so per­sist up­on re­turn.

“If peo­ple come back, they will now have the pow­er and the link­ages to ex­port il­lic­it sub­stances to the Unit­ed King­dom,” he said. Seep­er­sad em­pha­sised that out­comes will vary wide­ly de­pend­ing on crim­i­nal his­to­ry, length of stay abroad, and the na­ture of any net­works es­tab­lished.