Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no

@guardian.co.tt

A New York fam­i­ly has made his­to­ry as the first in the city to be grant­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen­ship un­der the coun­try’s new law al­low­ing chil­dren to ac­quire cit­i­zen­ship through a grand­par­ent.

Anil Sama­roo, whose par­ents are Trinida­di­an, re­cent­ly com­plet­ed the process for his two chil­dren, Ryan, 21, and Ri­an­na, 15. He de­scribed the mo­ment as “speech­less” and “a proud, proud mo­ment.”

“My son is 21 and my daugh­ter is 15,” Anil Sama­roo said. “I woke up this morn­ing around 4 am, still full of ex­cite­ment and joy. The first per­son who came to my mind was my dad, just know­ing he’s prob­a­bly look­ing on, smil­ing, and say­ing how proud he is that we’re tak­ing steps to con­tin­ue our fam­i­ly his­to­ry.”

Anil, who holds dual cit­i­zen­ship him­self, said he has al­ways felt a deep con­nec­tion to his her­itage. “I got my dual cit­i­zen­ship when I was about eight years old, and I was proud to have it. My kids ac­tu­al­ly want­ed to car­ry on that tra­di­tion, to live that life, and have ac­cess to that her­itage. They want­ed to em­brace the lega­cy of their grand­par­ents and the coun­try they come from.”

The process to se­cure cit­i­zen­ship ini­tial­ly seemed daunt­ing. “At first, it sound­ed over­whelm­ing be­cause my kids and I were born in the US, and we need­ed to get all our US doc­u­men­ta­tion. I thought it would be dif­fi­cult,” he ex­plained. “But af­ter I start­ed do­ing re­search, I found it was ac­tu­al­ly quite sim­ple. There was some work and time in­volved, but it was man­age­able.”

He praised the staff at the T&T con­sulate for their guid­ance and sup­port through­out the ap­pli­ca­tion process. “The con­sulate staff kept in con­tact with me by email, sent me full in­struc­tions, and were one of the nicest groups of peo­ple I have met in such a long time. They made the process very smooth and clear, which I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed,” he said.

The fam­i­ly’s vis­it to the con­sulate al­so in­clud­ed an un­ex­pect­ed mo­ment of lev­i­ty. “This wasn’t a ca­su­al vis­it,” he re­called. “My son had to go to clin­i­cals that day, so he was in scrubs. We didn’t know what to ex­pect, but it turned out to be a won­der­ful ex­pe­ri­ence. It was a mix of emo­tions, pride, and ex­cite­ment.”

Anil high­light­ed the per­son­al and emo­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance of the mile­stone. “Just from an emo­tion­al stand­point, it was over­whelm­ing. It was a proud mo­ment, know­ing that we are con­tin­u­ing our fam­i­ly lega­cy. Most­ly, it was about ho­n­our­ing our fa­ther, Son­ny Sama­roo, and the rest of our fam­i­ly,” he said. “It’s not just about pa­per­work or le­gal sta­tus— it’s about iden­ti­ty, her­itage, and the op­por­tu­ni­ty for my chil­dren to ex­pe­ri­ence the cul­ture and lifestyle of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

The Grand­par­ent Law, for­mal­ly called The Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, al­lows in­di­vid­u­als born out­side T&T to ac­quire cit­i­zen­ship if at least one grand­par­ent was a cit­i­zen at the time of the ap­pli­cant’s birth. The law ex­tends cit­i­zen­ship to sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion de­scen­dants, mean­ing grand­chil­dren can now ob­tain cit­i­zen­ship even if their par­ents did not claim it. This pro­vi­sion opened the path­way for fam­i­lies like the Sama­roos to for­malise their ties to the is­land na­tion.

On Wednes­day, the Con­sulate Gen­er­al of the Re­pub­lic of T&T in New York cel­e­brat­ed the fam­i­ly’s achieve­ment. Their post read:

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to Ryan and Ri­an­na! We at The Con­sulate Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go in New York are proud to cel­e­brate this his­toric mile­stone with Ryan and Ri­an­na as they be­come first ap­pli­cants to be grant­ed cit­i­zen­ship through the Grand­par­ent Rule in New York! Your jour­ney ho­n­ours her­itage, strength­ens our com­mu­ni­ty, and re­flects the en­dur­ing bonds that con­nect gen­er­a­tions. May this new chap­ter be filled with pride, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and con­tin­ued con­nec­tion to what is now called your home, Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ryan al­so ex­pressed his grat­i­tude:

“Thank you and all the oth­ers very much for all your sup­port and gen­eros­i­ty in mak­ing the whole process spe­cial for my fam­i­ly and me. We are so en­tire­ly ho­n­oured to­day to have made his­to­ry with you all—Third Gen­er­a­tion Trin­bag­on­ian.”

Anil ex­pressed hope that more fam­i­lies in New York and be­yond will ex­plore their con­nec­tions to T&T. “It’s a priv­i­lege to con­tin­ue our fam­i­ly’s lega­cy,” he said. “I re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate this, and I hope oth­er fam­i­lies take ad­van­tage of this op­por­tu­ni­ty.”