The Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go says all de­ci­sions about visas rest sole­ly with the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment and not with any for­eign au­thor­i­ty.

The de­vel­op­ment fol­lows com­ments made by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der, who said he would be en­list­ing the US Em­bassy’s sup­port to counter US-based so­cial me­dia ac­tors, some of whom hold dual cit­i­zen­ship, and whom he claims are spread­ing pro­pa­gan­da and fear in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

His pro­pos­al came days af­ter Sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), Gary Aboud, re­vealed that his US visa had been re­voked.

But in a post on its Face­book page yes­ter­day, the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain said Wash­ing­ton con­trols all ap­provals, de­nials, and re­vo­ca­tions, adding that no for­eign gov­ern­ment plays any role in the process.

It stressed that the Unit­ed States does not re­voke visas be­cause some­one ex­er­cis­es their right to free ex­pres­sion, which it de­scribed as a “cor­ner­stone val­ue of our coun­try.”

How­ev­er, the US Em­bassy said Amer­i­can visas can be de­nied or re­voked based on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

So­cial me­dia ac­tiv­i­ty has come un­der scruti­ny in this coun­try in the last week, af­ter it was learnt that a 44-year-old woman from Diego Mar­tin was ar­rest­ed un­der a Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der and placed at the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca. Olive Green-Jack was tak­en in­to cus­tody af­ter al­leged­ly mak­ing and pub­lish­ing pub­lic posts and/or com­ments on so­cial me­dia ad­dressed to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment in an at­tempt to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.”

The or­der added that the post and com­ments in­vit­ed vi­o­lence on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and mem­bers of the pub­lic by Venezuela and/or ex­ter­nal per­sons, which re­vealed “an im­mi­nent threat to pub­lic safe­ty.”

On Mon­day, a Diego Mar­tin man was ar­rest­ed by po­lice for al­leged­ly mak­ing threats on Face­book against Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne and his fam­i­ly.

On Tues­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro warned cit­i­zens that mak­ing threats on so­cial me­dia is against the law and will not be tol­er­at­ed.