While he did not go in­to the spe­cif­ic de­tails of how de­por­tees would be mon­i­tored, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der main­tained that lo­cal law en­force­ment would con­tin­ue to en­sure that peo­ple re­turn­ing to T&T obey the law.

On Sat­ur­day morn­ing, 17 de­por­tees ar­rived in T&T from the Unit­ed States.

Be­fore they were al­lowed to leave, of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU), record­ed their in­for­ma­tion in­clud­ing where they would be housed.

In an in­ter­view at the El Do­ra­do Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre where he was host­ing a cur­ry duck cook-off yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said the po­lice will play close at­ten­tion to the re­cent de­por­tees.

He said while some of those who were de­port­ed did not com­mit crimes, they were in vi­o­la­tion of US im­mi­gra­tion laws.

“We must keep in touch with these peo­ple whether through an or­gan­i­sa­tion or di­rect­ly with law en­force­ment,” he said

“We want peo­ple to live peace­ful­ly and we don’t want to brand every­one who is de­port­ed as a crim­i­nal.

“We treat peo­ple like peo­ple, we coun­selled them and wel­comed them home. They were giv­en a sec­ond chance and we want them to make full use of it in a pos­i­tive way.”

He al­so warned de­por­tees with crim­i­nal back­grounds that slip­ping in­to their past habits would not be tol­er­at­ed.

“What they may have got­ten away with abroad, they won’t get away with it here.”

Of the 17 de­por­tees that re­turned to T&T on Sat­ur­day, two have been de­tained pend­ing fur­ther en­quiries in re­la­tion to crimes com­mit­ted decades ago.