US Embassy issues advisory on State of Emergency

The Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port of Spain has ad­vised US cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go to ex­pect in­creased se­cu­ri­ty ac­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of a na­tion­wide State of Emer­gency.

In an ad­vi­so­ry, the em­bassy said the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go de­clared the State of Emer­gency on March 2nd, 2026, and it took ef­fect on March 3rd, 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to the ad­vi­so­ry, the mea­sure fol­lowed a spike in vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, main­ly linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs.

The em­bassy said US cit­i­zens should ex­pect an in­creased pres­ence of po­lice and mil­i­tary per­son­nel dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the State of Emer­gency.

It ex­plained that un­der the emer­gency mea­sures, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice will have the au­thor­i­ty to ar­rest in­di­vid­u­als on sus­pi­cion of in­volve­ment in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties and to search and en­ter pub­lic and pri­vate premis­es when nec­es­sary.

The ad­vi­so­ry added that bail pro­vi­sions are sus­pend­ed for those sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a crime.

Mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force will al­so op­er­ate un­der sim­i­lar reg­u­la­tions dur­ing the State of Emer­gency.

The em­bassy said there are cur­rent­ly no cur­fews or re­stric­tions on pub­lic as­sem­blies, but the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go will mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion dai­ly and may change re­stric­tions if nec­es­sary.

The ad­vi­so­ry al­so re­mind­ed US gov­ern­ment per­son­nel that they are pro­hib­it­ed from trav­el­ling to sev­er­al ar­eas, in­clud­ing Laven­tille, Beetham, Sea Lots, Co­corite, and the in­te­ri­or of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

They must al­so avoid sev­er­al lo­ca­tions af­ter dark, in­clud­ing beach­es, down­town Port of Spain, Fort George, and the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

The em­bassy ad­vised US cit­i­zens to car­ry iden­ti­fi­ca­tion at all times, co­op­er­ate with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties dur­ing State of Emer­gency op­er­a­tions, mon­i­tor rep­utable news out­lets and of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment up­dates, and re­port sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

It al­so en­cour­aged US cit­i­zens to en­rol in the Smart Trav­el­er En­roll­ment Pro­gram to re­ceive alerts and up­dates.