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Thursday, July 24, 2025

AG's Advice on illegal staff at NY mission: No More US Visas

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20140105

Ex­pired A-2 work visas for lo­cal­ly-re­cruit­ed staff (LRS) at­tached to the New York-based Con­sul Gen­er­al's of­fice will not be re­newed.The mat­ter has en­gaged the at­ten­tion of Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Win­ston Dook­er­an and Con­sul Gen­er­al Nan Ram­goolam for al­most three years be­fore fi­nal­ly be­ing re­ferred to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan for a con­clu­sive le­gal de­ter­mi­na­tion last month.

The A-2 is a diplo­mat­ic, non-im­mi­grant visa which al­lows for­eign ac­cred­it­ed of­fi­cials out­side of the diplo­mat­ic cat­e­go­ry, to en­ter the US and en­gage in of­fi­cial ac­tiv­i­ties of their gov­ern­ment. All for­eign gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, rank­ing next to diplo­mats and of­fi­cials, rep­re­sent­ing their na­tion­al gov­ern­ment and im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers of A-2 diplo­mat­ic visa hold­ers are el­i­gi­ble for an A-2 visa. The hold­er of such a visa can­not be tried by the US for any crime and is as­sured of un­re­strict­ed trav­el to, from and with­in the US.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ter-min­is­te­r­i­al cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by the Sun­day Guardian, Ram­lo­gan and two se­nior le­gal minds at his of­fice came to the same con­clu­sion–that it was "im­prop­er and un­eth­i­cal" to use the pow­er of the T&T con­sul's of­fice to ob­tain work visas from the Unit­ed States State De­part­ment."This pol­i­cy should there­fore cease with im­me­di­ate ef­fect," Ram­lo­gan said a let­ter to Dook­er­an.

Ram­lo­gan said us­ing the con­sulate's of­fice to ob­tain work visas for peo­ple liv­ing il­le­gal­ly in the Unit­ed States was "a mis­use and abuse of diplo­mat­ic pro­to­col.""For­eign mis­sions should on­ly hire per­sons who are law­ful­ly res­i­dent and en­ti­tled to work in the host na­tion. Mis­sions should there­fore de­sist from hir­ing per­sons who are not law­ful­ly en­ti­tled to re­side and work in the host na­tion in ac­cor­dance with the rel­e­vant im­mi­gra­tion laws," he said in the let­ter.

The AG al­so said it was an abuse of the "rec­i­p­ro­cal comi­ty that ex­ists be­tween na­tions for Trinidad and To­ba­go to cir­cum­vent the host na­tions laws by em­ploy­ing il­le­gal im­mi­grants and procur­ing an A-2 visa".

No visa shouldbe need­ed

The con­sul of­fices can hire two cat­e­gories of peo­ple, home bound staff (HBS) who are based in T&T and the LRS, made up of peo­ple al­ready hold­ing a green card or peo­ple with Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship."There is no need to ap­ply for an A-2 visa (or any oth­er kind of visa) to fa­cil­i­tate the em­ploy­ment of lo­cal­ly re­cruit­ed staff in the host na­tion. Such per­sons would al­ready be law­ful­ly res­i­dent and en­ti­tled to work in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca," Ram­lo­gan said.

"If, on the oth­er hand, the em­ploy­ee is not legal­ly res­i­dent and en­ti­tled to work in the USA, the em­ploy­ment of such a per­son us­ing the A-2 visa is im­prop­er and un­eth­i­cal. It is a back­door method of reg­u­lar­iz­ing their im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus in cir­cum­stances where they are oth­er­wise not en­ti­tled to legal­ly live and work in the USA," he said.

Ram­goolam:I am vin­di­cat­ed

Con­sul gen­er­al Nan Ram­goolam, ini­tial­ly raised the con­cern and had re­fused to con­tin­ue to fa­cil­i­tate the visa re­newals yes­ter­day said she was un­aware that a le­gal de­ter­mi­na­tion was made, but said she was glad that Ram­lo­gan had."What hap­pened is that you had peo­ple com­ing to the US with a vis­i­tor's visa and they were be­ing hired even though they were not legal­ly al­lowed to work in the US," she said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

"Some were work­ing at the Mis­sion with­out prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion and I was ex­pect­ed to car­ry on that cus­tom," she said.Ram­goolam said she re­spect­ed the trust her of­fice held and had al­ready re­fused to re­new any ex­pired A-2 visas. "I am vin­di­cat­ed now that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has made this de­ter­mi­na­tion," she said.

Ram­goolam, in her ca­pac­i­ty, would have to no­ti­fy the US State De­part­ment of the ex­pired visa to fa­cil­i­tate a re­new­al. "You can­not breach the laws of an­oth­er coun­try and once one of these visas come to an end, I am not re­new­ing them," she said.Nei­ther Ram­lo­gan nor Dook­er­an could be reached for com­ment.


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