Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter of Do­mini­ca Roo­sevelt Sker­rit has con­firmed that the Unit­ed States has not with­drawn or sus­pend­ed its De­cem­ber 16 procla­ma­tion im­pos­ing par­tial trav­el re­stric­tions, but said the Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived key clar­i­fi­ca­tions on how the mea­sures will be ap­plied.

Sker­rit said the first for­mal re­view of the re­stric­tions will take place 90 days af­ter Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, and that the mea­sures will re­main in ef­fect un­til iden­ti­fied con­cerns are ad­dressed. He sought to re­as­sure Do­mini­can na­tion­als who al­ready hold US visas, stat­ing, “The sim­ple an­swer is yes,” when asked whether they can con­tin­ue to trav­el af­ter Jan­u­ary 1. He added that “no valid US visas are be­ing re­voked as a re­sult of the procla­ma­tion.”

Do­mini­can na­tion­als with­out visas can con­tin­ue to ap­ply, he said, but new visas can­not be is­sued while re­stric­tions re­main in place for af­fect­ed cat­e­gories. “At this time, the gov­ern­ment has not been ad­vised of any new or ad­di­tion­al visa ap­pli­ca­tion re­quire­ments,” Sker­rit added.

The is­sue has drawn re­gion­al at­ten­tion. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly cit­ed Do­mini­ca and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da while warn­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als to “be­have your­self” when en­gag­ing the Unit­ed States.

She not­ed that more than 350,000 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als hold US visas and use them fre­quent­ly. “Over 350,000 Tri­nis and To­bag­o­ni­ans hold a US visa. Why? Be­cause peo­ple like to go and vis­it the Unit­ed States,” she said, adding that many use their visas “not to trav­el once, but mul­ti­ple times.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar cau­tioned crit­ics, say­ing, “Care­ful you don’t end up like An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and Do­mini­ca who bad­mouthed in the US and guess what hap­pened? All their visas are re­strict­ed now. They have cut their visas.”

In his ad­dress, Sker­rit said the Gov­ern­ment of Do­mini­ca act­ed quick­ly af­ter the procla­ma­tion, en­gag­ing US of­fi­cials through the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, and Do­mini­ca’s Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton, and writ­ing to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion and ur­gent di­a­logue.

De­fend­ing Do­mini­ca’s Cit­i­zen­ship by In­vest­ment pro­gramme, he said the coun­try en­act­ed wide-rang­ing re­forms on Oc­to­ber 14, in­clud­ing stricter due dili­gence, en­hanced res­i­den­cy re­quire­ments, and stronger pow­ers to re­voke cit­i­zen­ship where nec­es­sary. Sker­rit said the gov­ern­ment re­mains con­fi­dent the re­forms ad­dress the is­sues raised.

“We re­main ful­ly com­mit­ted to co­op­er­a­tion, trans­paren­cy, and shared se­cu­ri­ty ob­jec­tives,” he said, adding that en­gage­ment with US au­thor­i­ties will con­tin­ue with the aim of re­vers­ing all re­stric­tions af­fect­ing Do­mini­can na­tion­als.