Raphael John-Lall

The Amer­i­can Em­bassy in T&T is con­cerned about the grounds on which Bernie Camp­bell, Amer­i­can po­lit­i­cal con­sul­tant was turned around at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Thurs­day. "We are con­cerned about the grounds on which he was de­tained and turned around," Matthew Cas­set­ta, Pub­lic Af­fairs Of­fi­cer at Amer­i­can Em­bassy told the Guardian yes­ter­day. "We asked the T&T Gov­ern­ment for an ex­pla­na­tion...We want to en­sure that every­thing was pro­ce­du­ral­ly done."

He said Camp­bell is a pri­vate Amer­i­can cit­i­zen who was in T&T on his own per­son­al busi­ness. Cas­set­ta says he un­der­stands that the "ar­ti­cle" that was in­voked in the Im­mi­gra­tion law to turn him around is "sel­dom in­voked," and they would like an ex­pla­na­tion on that. He said they were still wait­ing for an ex­pla­na­tion from the Gov­ern­ment. He added that T&T is a "sov­er­eign coun­try" and has a right to "en­force" its own laws.

Im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Thurs­day de­nied Camp­bell en­try in­to the coun­try and lat­er put him on a flight back to the Unit­ed States. Camp­bell first en­tered Trinidad and To­ba­go on April 15, and de­clared to the lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion that he was in the coun­try on busi­ness as a con­sul­tant. The UNC for­mal­ly en­gaged Camp­bell for the gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign and he left Trinidad on April 19, with the ex­pec­ta­tion that he would re­turn to for­mal­ly as­sume his as­sign­ment.