Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs min­is­ter Sean Sobers says his min­istry has sub­mit­ted doc­u­ments to the Unit­ed King­dom in a con­tin­ued at­tempt to re­verse the cur­rent visa re­quire­ment for T&T na­tion­als. Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Sobers said, “Es­sen­tial­ly, we have trashed out cer­tain things, cer­tain asks that they had of us as a coun­try… We’ve sent the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to them, and we are wait­ing on a re­sponse from them as it per­tains to that in­for­ma­tion that we’ve sent on to them”.

For months Sobers has been work­ing with UK of­fi­cials to re­store visa-free ac­cess for T&T pass­port hold­ers de­spite telling Guardian Me­dia in May he had found a so­lu­tion. Asked for an up­date in Ju­ly, Sobers said the core is­sue was the ab­sence of leg­is­la­tion to no­ti­fy the UK in ad­vance of trav­ellers de­part­ing T&T for Britain. Guardian Me­dia reached out Min­is­ter Sobers for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on whether that leg­is­la­tion had al­ready been draft­ed. We al­so asked when the min­is­ter next planned to meet with UK of­fi­cials. We re­ceived no re­sponse to our ques­tions.

Sobers has on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions blamed the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion for the UK’s de­ci­sion, say­ing there was a lack of po­lit­i­cal will. But his pre­de­ces­sor Dr Amery Browne pushed back against Sobers’ claims and ac­cused him of chang­ing his tune to avoid re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. In a What­sApp re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Browne said, “The UK Gov­ern­ment has been very clear on what caused the visa im­po­si­tion, and it had every­thing to do with a few cit­i­zens who were in abuse of the asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tion sys­tem in the UK”. In an­nounc­ing the de­ci­sion on March 12, the British High Com­mis­sion said it was “tak­en due to a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in the num­ber of TT na­tion­als com­ing to the UK as vis­i­tors on­ly to claim asy­lum on ar­rival, con­sti­tut­ing a mis­use of the im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem”. Ac­cord­ing to The Times, asy­lum claims from T&T na­tion­als rose from an an­nu­al av­er­age of 49 be­tween 2015 and 2019 to 439 in the past year.

Dr Browne al­so ac­cused Sobers of mis­lead­ing the pop­u­la­tion in May. He said, “In a most im­prop­er and in­com­pe­tent man­ner, he [Sobers] told the na­tion back in May 2025, 4 months ago, that he had an im­me­di­ate and sol­id so­lu­tion to solve the UK visa chal­lenge, which he would take to Cab­i­net the next day for a quick de­ci­sion…. Now, in the midst of the oth­er diplo­mat­ic dis­as­ters that the UNC gov­ern­ment has cre­at­ed, he has emerged with the old for­mu­la of blame the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion. Min­is­ter Sobers’ new ex­cus­es are just an­oth­er at­tempt to buy time and avoid the du­ty of lev­el­ing with the pop­u­la­tion.”

On March 12, UK High Com­mis­sion­er Jon Dean an­nounced a change to the visa pol­i­cy of the Unit­ed King­dom, end­ing visa-free ac­cess with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. T&T pass­port hold­ers are now re­quired to ob­tain a visa be­fore trav­el­ling to or tran­sit­ing through the UK.