Concerns are being raised about the monitoring of deportees to this country with potentially dangerous skills.
There is the fear among citizens that these deportees may be corrupted to turn their training towards criminal activities such as robberies and murders.
Founder of Vision on Mission (VOM) Wayne Chance confirmed that some of them have military training in firearms, weapons, and come with other high-tech skills and techniques useful in crimes.
Chance said there were challenges for the deportees—one of them being adapting to the new environment and culture of T&T when many of them grew up in the US, Canada, and the UK. He admitted that some of them who may return with criminal tendencies may become hopeless with the little opportunities available to them and may turn to crime.
Chance said within the last ten years, the Caribbean had received over 72,000 deportees—T&T received some 6,000 of those deportees.
He was speaking to the Sunday Guardian last week at VOM’s headquarters in San Juan, on whether the Ministry of National Security or the police documented, kept tabs on, or monitored these particular deportees’ arrival into the country and their whereabouts.
He said, “The T&T Police Service’s Special Branch does some level of surveillance, but there’s much to be desired. If they state that they do, I am not aware.
“I recall early in 2004-2005, members of the Special Branch Unit used to come and check on certain types of deportees. There are those that come back with certain types of military training and expert in certain areas of weaponry and arms.
“Special Branch officers would come, monitor and check on them, and call us periodically to find out how they were going, but we haven’t seen that in the last seven or eight years.”
Citizens’ fear is also coupled with concerns that US President Donald Trump will be deporting people with criminal records to their homeland.
US Channel, Fox4 announcer Shaun Rabb reported that while on the campaign trail, Trump, as part of his immigration enforcement policy, said there were two to three million people who were committing crimes and should not be in America.
Rabb said as the president of the US, Trump had now empowered federal agents to work with US law enforcement to round up and deport people who committed certain crimes even though they were in the US legally. This includes people from T&T.
While acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams did not return calls on the matter Friday, National Security Minister Edmund Dillon yesterday said the Special Branch has been monitoring the deportees. (SEE BOX)
Incidents involving deportees
A deportee who received military training in the US Army attacked and robbed a licenced firearm dealer in the East-West corridor a few years ago.
The deportee who was in top physical condition scaled the burglar proofing with ease like a US Armed Forces obstacle course tower climb. Both men were armed, but the deportee overpowered the businessman, stole his money and escaped.
In another incident, a police officer attached to the Port-of-Spain City Corporation pursued a deportee into an HDC apartment on Duncan Street. He said when he wrestled the deportee to the ground, he was sprayed with pepper spray, one of the sophisticated “tricks” the deportee had learned while living in America.
$26,000 a year to reintegrate a deportee
Chance said VOM—a non-governmental organisation (NGO) set up since 1995—was responsible for the surveillance and monitoring of these individuals as well as their reintegration and resettlement into society.
He said they receive an annual subvention from the Ministry of National Security of $1 million and he had to stretch it out to work with over 600 clients a year and to help meet overhead expenses, administrative, programme expenses, and operations as well.
He said it cost approximately $26,000 annually to reintegrate a deportee or a local ex-inmate.
He said when deportees were scheduled to be sent back to T&T, only inter-Government agencies were initially involved such as Immigration, The Foreign Affairs Ministry, The Ministry of Social Development, Interpol, and Special Branch.
Chance said sometimes VOM was contacted via email by the prisons where the deportees scheduled for deportation are incarcerated.
He said not every deportee came to VOM. Once a deportee arrived at the airport and he did not have a family or relative to receive him, a police officer or official from the Ministry of Social Development contacted the organisation to arrange a pick up, but many end up at VOM because of the challenges their families have with them.
Speaking to the Sunday Guardian in 2013, Chance had said there were ten deportees at VOM at the time. More than 100 had returned to T&T and 65 of them had been integrated, however, the other 35 could not be located.
T&T not ready for influx of deportees
Chance said under Trump’s administration and the perception of an anti-immigration policy the rate of deportees will increase and the country was not prepared for this influx.
He said the situation had brought a lot of attention and concerns to the organisation as it was severely challenged resource-wise to meet the demand.
He said on January 31, he picked up another deportee—they come in sometimes three times for the month, and recently, at least twice for the month in different numbers.
Chance said some of the clients VOM received their offences were serious ranging from murder, larceny, drug trafficking, possession of arms and ammunition, shootings, armed robberies, wounding to assault.
He said, however, most of them would have spent time in prison and became involved with many rehabilitative programmes conducted in US prisons. Chance said upon their arrival in T&T the breakdown occurs when they do not enter into an organised or structured programme to help them to reintegrate. He said there were families that received these individuals that were not prepared for them.
Chance said because of some their behaviour and sometimes addictions conflict arose at the homes and some deportees ended up involved in crime.
He said those that came to the organisation he was proud to say that most were able to reintegrate based on how the group conducted its programmes.
NEXT WEEK: Deportees plant the land in Wallerfield