Jensen La Vende 

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt 

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is lead­ing the charge to re­verse the visa im­po­si­tion placed on T&T by the Unit­ed King­dom.

All na­tion­als of T&T are now re­quired to have a visa to en­ter the UK, in­clud­ing for short vis­its. The de­ci­sion, made pub­lic on March 12, comes in re­sponse to what the UK Gov­ern­ment de­scribed as a “sig­nif­i­cant in­crease” in T&T na­tion­als ar­riv­ing as vis­i­tors and then claim­ing asy­lum.

The in­ter­ven­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter came days af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the coun­try should with­draw from the Privy Coun­cil in re­sponse to the im­po­si­tion.

Row­ley’s com­ments came as he pre­sent­ed the 41 can­di­dates for the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion at Wood­ford Square on Sun­day.

The elec­tion date was an­nounced yes­ter­day.

“It is un­just; it is dis­grace­ful that they would dis­re­gard our wider na­tion­al in­ter­est, put a fee on us and tell us, while you have to come to us to have our law lords tell you what is right and wrong, you have to pay for a visa to come and do that,” Row­ley said. 

Re­spond­ing to the me­dia yes­ter­day, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne is hope­ful that the re­quest to re­verse the visa re­stric­tions im­posed on the coun­try by the Unit­ed King­dom will be done by the end of the year.

Speak­ing at the na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion on the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket Econ­o­my at the Brix Ho­tel, Browne said it was a few in­di­vid­u­als that made it hard for the coun­try.

“We’re in dis­cus­sion with them, led by Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, and of course, we’re talk­ing asy­lum and im­mi­gra­tion. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has been and will con­tin­ue to be a very im­por­tant part of those dis­cus­sions. We are hope­ful and are rep­re­sent­ing that that pol­i­cy, that im­po­si­tion, will be re­viewed in the short­est pos­si­ble time, dur­ing the year 2025, and we’ve for­mal­ly protest­ed and re­quest­ed a re­ver­sal.”

He said, “This tran­si­tion pe­ri­od is patent­ly un­fair and is bru­tal­is­ing the pock­ets of many per­sons who have tick­ets in hand, prospec­tive trav­ellers, and they’ve said that they’re work­ing to find some flex­i­bil­i­ty or ad­just­ment. Let’s see, we are main­tain­ing the pres­sure.”

In a me­dia re­lease last Sat­ur­day, Browne said he lodged an of­fi­cial com­plaint on the mat­ter with the British High Com­mis­sion.

He said the UK’s claim that there were cit­i­zens who made false asy­lum claims should not be re­spond­ed to with an over­all visa re­stric­tion. He said there were some who be­lieved that the coun­try de­served the im­po­si­tion of the visa re­stric­tion, but he dis­agreed.

“It’s not the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s fault. We’ve done noth­ing to earn or de­serve that un­just de­ci­sion. This is a case of Pe­ter pay­ing for Paul, where some na­tion­als have sought to abuse the very wide-open im­mi­gra­tion loop­hole, the asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem in the Unit­ed King­dom.

They’ve been abus­ing it, mak­ing false claims, and the un­for­tu­nate de­ci­sion by the Unit­ed King­dom as a re­sult of that is to im­pose a visa re­quire­ment on all our na­tion­als.”