To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

The sur­prise an­nounce­ment that Hen­ry Bernard Camp­bell, a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign ad­vis­er work­ing with AKPD Mes­sage and Me­dia, had been de­nied en­try to Trinidad and To­ba­go at Pi­ar­co Air­port, brought on­ly brusque replies from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty when the me­dia ques­tioned him about the mat­ter. "A re­lease will come from the min­istry," Min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph mut­tered, as tele­vi­sion cam­eras and mi­cro­phones con­verged on him. That re­lease proved to be on­ly slight­ly more in­for­ma­tive than the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter's sharply-bit­ten com­ments. Just two sen­tences long and signed by the "Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit," the re­lease not­ed that nei­ther Min­is­ter Joseph nor any Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment of­fi­cer had signed a de­por­ta­tion or­der, and that Camp­bell "was de­nied en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 8 (1) (q) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, Chap­ter 18:01."

And this is where things get very cu­ri­ous. The sur­re­al cir­cum­stances of Hen­ry Bernard Camp­bell's sec­ond vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go on busi­ness re­lat­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress cam­paign for gov­ern­ment seem to have been trig­gered by a ruth­less­ly straight read­ing of a pro­vi­sion in the Im­mi­gra­tion Act. Camp­bell's sec­ond vis­it may have run afoul of a stip­u­la­tion in the rules that gov­ern work per­mits that a per­son may on­ly en­ter the coun­try once a year with­out a work per­mit for the pur­pos­es of do­ing busi­ness. Sec­tion 8 (1) (q) re­lates specif­i­cal­ly to per­sons who are deemed un­de­sir­able in the judg­ment of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Camp­bell's prin­ci­pals, AKPD Mes­sage and Me­dia, have found­ed a suc­cess­ful prac­tice built on a rep­u­ta­tion for guid­ing po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates to of­fice, the most pub­lic ex­am­ple of which was the cam­paign of US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma.

Past de­nials of en­try in­to the coun­try have tend­ed to be re­served for sit­u­a­tions of re­al threat to na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty, not the fear of pub­lic re­la­tions as­saults on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Dur­ing the prepa­ra­tions for the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in 2009, lists of known agents provo­ca­teur like­ly to en­ter the coun­try ex­plic­it­ly for the pur­pos­es of in­vok­ing pub­lic protest were drawn up and the most vis­i­ble of these per­sons were, quite un­der­stand­ably, de­nied en­try in­to the coun­try. Ac­cord­ing to the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers in charge of a port of en­try are des­ig­nat­ed as spe­cial in­quiry of­fi­cers, with ex­pand­ed pow­ers of dis­cre­tion. Such of­fi­cers can de­cide on de­nials of en­try, the im­ple­men­ta­tion of de­por­ta­tion pro­ceed­ings and may al­so ex­er­cise their judg­ment in al­low­ing en­try to in­di­vid­u­als with writ­ten con­di­tions.

There would seem to be no is­sue with such a spe­cial in­quiry of­fi­cer eval­u­at­ing a sit­u­a­tion like the one that Hen­ry Bernard Camp­bell faced when he ar­rived on Amer­i­can Air­lines Flight 1819, and choos­ing an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent so­lu­tion; per­haps al­low­ing the trav­eller en­try on strict no­tice that they could not com­mence work un­til a prop­er work per­mit had been lodged with the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment. Such an ac­tion seems well with­in the pow­ers giv­en to spe­cial in­quiry of­fi­cers un­der the act, in­clud­ing the pow­er to is­sue en­try cer­tifi­cates "for a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od and sub­ject to such terms and con­di­tions as may be men­tioned there­in." Spe­cial in­quiry of­fi­cers are al­so em­pow­ered un­der the act to "ex­tend or lim­it the pe­ri­od of his stay, vary the con­di­tions at­tached to his en­try, or oth­er­wise deal with him as if he were a per­son seek­ing en­try in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go for the first time."

This cer­tain­ly can­not be the first time that a per­son in an ac­cept­ed and quite vis­i­ble line of work has been faced with the stric­tures of lo­cal work per­mit reg­u­la­tions. It is cer­tain­ly the first time that such a high- pro­file de­nial of en­try has been lodged on the ba­sis of a work per­mit is­sue in a PNM era which has set such store in the idea of for­eign work­ers and con­sul­tants adding to the pool of knowl­edge avail­able in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Against that back­drop and this coun­try's long-stand­ing en­thu­si­asm for work­ing with skilled work­ers from for­eign na­tions, the abrupt de­nial of en­try met­ed out to Hen­ry Bernard Camp­bell is puz­zling. The blunt, un­in­for­ma­tive re­spons­es of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on­ly serve to ex­pand the cloud of un­cer­tain­ty around the mat­ter.

It is sim­ply not enough for the Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Paula Gopee-Scoon to de­clare that the ac­tion was un­re­lat­ed to the gen­er­al elec­tion. Of­fi­cials at the US Em­bassy, who were not con­sult­ed at all when the mat­ter was ac­tive, not­ed that the cir­cum­stances were "not very clear­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed." If, as the UNC's po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claims, the or­der to de­ny en­try to Camp­bell came di­rect­ly from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, he owes the coun­try a clear­er ac­count­ing of the per­ceived threat that the PR man posed to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the ter­ri­ble fate from which we were all saved on Thurs­day night.