Trini among four Caribbean nationals to be stripped of US citizenship

Four Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) na­tion­als - in­clud­ing a Trinida­di­an - are among 17 for­eign­ers, against whom the De­part­ment of Jus­tice says it has filed de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion ac­tions in var­i­ous US dis­trict courts, ac­cus­ing them of se­ri­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing sex­u­al abuse of a mi­nor, wire and bank fraud and dis­trib­ut­ing drugs whole­sale with­out a li­cence.

Un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion and Na­tion­al­i­ty Act, cit­i­zen­ship may be re­voked and cer­tifi­cate of nat­u­ral­iza­tion can­celled, if the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion was il­le­gal­ly pro­cured or pro­cured by con­ceal­ment of a ma­te­r­i­al fact or by wil­ful mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the De­part­ment of Jus­tice, the Caribbean na­tion­als are from Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Haiti.

US jus­tice of­fi­cials claim that be­fore his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion in 2016, 30-year-old Ron­nie Price of Trinidad and To­ba­go had sex­u­al in­ter­course with a fe­male who was un­der 16, a statu­to­ry rape crime to which he even­tu­al­ly plead­ed guilty.

The Jus­tice De­part­ment said dur­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ceed­ings, how­ev­er, Price false­ly tes­ti­fied and con­cealed facts that would have un­cov­ered his crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion com­plaint al­leges that Price en­gaged in un­law­ful con­duct dur­ing a crit­i­cal statu­to­ry pe­ri­od dur­ing which he was re­quired by law to main­tain good moral char­ac­ter; that he pro­vid­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion in­ter­view; and that he did so in or­der to con­ceal his crimes and wil­ful­ly mis­rep­re­sent ma­te­r­i­al facts that would have re­vealed his in­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the priv­i­lege of Unit­ed States cit­i­zen­ship,” it said.

US au­thor­i­ties al­so claim that pri­or to his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion in 2011, Rodger George Gur­don, a na­tive of Ja­maica, en­gaged in a con­spir­a­cy to steal and re­sell med­ical prod­ucts from mil­i­tary hos­pi­tals op­er­at­ed by the De­part­ment of De­fence.

They said Gur­don, 55, en­gaged in a con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute and pos­sess with in­tent to dis­trib­ute at least 100 kilo­grammes of a sub­stance con­tain­ing mar­i­jua­na. In 2013, af­ter he nat­u­ralised, Gur­don plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to steal pre-re­tail med­ical prod­ucts, in­ter-state re­ceipt of stolen prop­er­ty, and con­spir­a­cy to dis­trib­ute mar­i­jua­na, with the in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring dur­ing the pe­ri­od in which Gur­don was statu­to­ri­ly re­quired to demon­strate good moral char­ac­ter to nat­u­ral­ize.

The de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion com­plaint against Gur­don al­leges that, dur­ing the pe­ri­od in which he was statu­to­ri­ly re­quired to demon­strate good moral char­ac­ter, Gur­don com­mit­ted un­law­ful acts that ad­verse­ly re­flect­ed on his moral char­ac­ter.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the com­plaint al­leges that Gur­don wil­ful­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the ma­te­r­i­al fact of his crimes dur­ing his nat­u­ral­iza­tion pro­ceed­ings.

An­oth­er Ja­maican na­tion­al, 49-year-old Tal­man Har­ris, is ac­cused of con­spir­ing to ma­nip­u­late the price and vol­ume of shares of stock in pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­nies, caus­ing more than US$54 mil­lion to be in­vest­ed in ar­ti­fi­cial­ly con­trolled shares and an ul­ti­mate loss to in­vestors of ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$39 mil­lion from the scheme. The charges cov­er an eight-year pe­ri­od, in­clud­ing dur­ing his 2012-2014 nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ceed­ings.

In 2016, af­ter Har­ris' nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion, a ju­ry found him guilty of wire fraud and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit se­cu­ri­ties fraud and wire fraud, with his fraud­u­lent wire trans­fers and the con­spir­a­cy oc­cur­ring dur­ing the pe­ri­od in which he was statu­to­ri­ly re­quired to demon­strate good moral char­ac­ter.

The de­nat­u­ral­iza­tion com­plaint against Har­ris al­leges that he com­mit­ted a crime in­volv­ing moral turpi­tude, com­mit­ted un­law­ful acts that ad­verse­ly re­flect­ed on his moral char­ac­ter and false­ly tes­ti­fied about his crime.

The com­plaint ad­di­tion­al­ly al­leges that Har­ris wil­ful­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed the ma­te­r­i­al fact of his crimes dur­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ceed­ings.

With re­spect to Jean Claude Al­fred, a na­tive of Haiti, the Jus­tice De­part­ment said that he was nat­u­ralised as a US cit­i­zen in 1994.

“Be­gin­ning in Sep­tem­ber 1993, ap­prox­i­mate­ly one month be­fore fil­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion ap­pli­ca­tion, Al­fred re­peat­ed­ly sex­u­al­ly abused his mi­nor daugh­ter and con­tin­ued that con­duct dur­ing the pen­den­cy of his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ceed­ings.

“Dur­ing the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion process, Al­fred rep­re­sent­ed in his ap­pli­ca­tion and un­der oath that he had not com­mit­ted any crime for which he had not been ar­rest­ed and con­cealed his on­go­ing crim­i­nal con­duct.”

How­ev­er, in 1996 a Flori­da ju­ry con­vict­ed Al­fred of at­tempt­ed sex­u­al bat­tery up­on a child in a fa­mil­ial or cus­to­di­al re­la­tion­ship and for com­mit­ting lewd, las­civ­i­ous and in­de­cent as­sault up­on a child un­der the age of 16.

“The de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion com­plaint al­leges that Al­fred il­le­gal­ly pro­cured his cit­i­zen­ship be­cause he pro­vid­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny which pre­vent­ed him from es­tab­lish­ing good moral char­ac­ter re­quired for nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion. The com­plaint fur­ther al­leges that Al­fred ob­tained cit­i­zen­ship through the con­ceal­ment and wil­ful mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of ma­te­r­i­al facts con­cern­ing his sex­u­al abuse of a mi­nor,” the De­part­ment of Jus­tice added.

Com­ment­ing on the mat­ter, Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Todd Blanche said when crim­i­nal aliens ex­ploit the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion process by break­ing the law, there are con­se­quences.

“Crim­i­nal aliens are ly­ing about their past crimes, in­clud­ing drug deal­ers, sex­u­al preda­tors and fraud­sters. Gain­ing US cit­i­zen­ship is a priv­i­lege and un­der the stead­fast lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Trump, this De­part­ment of Jus­tice main­tains a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for the abuse of this process,” said Blanche.

“We con­tin­ue to work around the clock with our in­ter-agency part­ners to make sure US cit­i­zen­ship is grant­ed to those who tru­ly de­serve it,” he added.

WASH­ING­TON, CMC

CMC