Thread: 129 Belizeans among 3,292 deported from the U.S.

129 Belizeans among 3,292 deported from the U.S.
Friday, 01 August 2008

The United States sent back more than 3,000 deportees to the Caribbean region in the past nine months, according to a report on the Caribworldnews web site - 3,292 to be precise.

Deportees from Haiti were among the most numerous with 1,185, followed by Jamaica with 1,157.

Of that number, a whopping 967 were considered ‘criminal aliens’, meaning that they had committed a crime and had served time, while 190 were deemed non-criminal, a category often used to describe overstays and those caught sneaking into the U.S. Illegally.

Of those deported back to Haiti, 842 were non-criminals, compared to 343 who had a criminal background.

The oil-rich nation of Trinidad and Tobago received the third highest number of deportees for any CARICOM nation, with a total of 311. Of that number, 228 were considered criminal deportees, compared to 83 who were non-criminal.

Guyana was fourth on the list. Some 209 deportees, 140 of whom were considered criminal aliens. The other 69 were tagged as non-criminal.

Belize was the only other CARICOM nation to receive ‘triple digit’ deportees. Records show Belize received 129 deportees in recent months, 65 of whom were non-criminal, and 64 criminal.

The Bahamas and other CARICOM nations had less. The tourist-dependent islands of the Bahamas, which have seen a spike in crime like many other CARICOM nations, received 91 deportees in recent months, records show, 74 being criminal, compared to 17 who were not.

Other nations received far less.

Dominica and Barbados received 34 and 33 respectively, while Antigua and Barbuda received 28.

Twenty-seven were returned to St. Lucia and 22 to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

With the exception of St. Vincent, the number of criminal deportees received, compared to non-criminal, was larger for all four island states.

Barbados`s criminal deportee total for the past eight months was 32 of the 33 returned, while Dominica was forced to grapple with 17 criminal aliens.

Twenty-two of the 28 deportees Antigua and Barbuda received were criminal returnees, while 15 of St. Lucia’s 27 also were dubbed criminal. Grenada was forced to accept 15 deportees, 10 of whom were criminal aliens, while St. Kitts received 10, six of whom were criminal.

Nine nationals were sent back to Surinam, while the British Virgin Islands got back eight.

The Turks and Caicos and Bermuda saw seven each, while five were sent back to the Cayman Islands. Of that number, the majority were criminal deportees.

Montserrat received three, all criminal deportees, while Anguilla received the lowest number, two, both of whom were criminal deportees.

Deportation has become a key issue for countries in the Caribbean since the 1996 immigration laws changed and made green card holders who commit crimes, even petty ones, deportable.

At the 2007 conference on the Caribbean held in Washington, DC, leaders of the CARICOM countries raised the subject of deportation in their meetings with both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

One of their consistent concerns was the need to receive more information on deportees, including more detailed criminal records. In response, the U.S. offered to provide the computer hardware and software of the TD system.

CARICOM also has requested the U.S. assistance with resettlement and reintegration. The United Nations Development Programme currently funds a million-dollar International Organization for a Migration project in Haiti to provide deportee re-integration services, including counselling, vocational training, skills development, and micro-credit lending.

The U.S. State Department says it hopes to use this programme as a model for re-integration programmes in other CARICOM countries in the future.
http://www.reporter.bz/index.php?option ... 1&Itemid=2

Just watch all these countries decide to not accept their citizen deportees from the US.