Stu­dents who are stuck in the Unit­ed States for the past five months are call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate them as soon as pos­si­ble, not­ing that care pack­ages arranged for them were not reach­ing those in need.

Can­cer sur­vivor Sean Samad who has been lob­by­ing on be­half of 29 stu­dents from the US said he was stuck in New York and des­per­ate­ly want­ed to come back home.

Samad, a PhD stu­dent study­ing Cul­tur­al Stud­ies at the UWI St Au­gus­tine, said he left home in Jan­u­ary to do some re­search in Brazil.

“In May I had to fly to New York to avoid be­ing trapped in Brazil and since then I have been wait­ing here for an ex­emp­tion. I have ap­plied along with the 29 oth­er stu­dents. In­di­vid­ual ap­pli­ca­tions were made but we have not been grant­ed any ex­emp­tions,” he said.

He not­ed that many stu­dents were run­ning short on med­i­cine and food.

“Noth­ing has been set up to help us. Even with gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance which was an­nounced a month or so has not reached us. An an­nounce­ment made by the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs but there is an ap­pli­ca­tion form that has to be com­plet­ed and the check­list is quite lengthy so we do not know how long that process will take,” he said. 

He added, “Sev­er­al of us are fac­ing med­ical is­sues. I am a can­cer sur­vivor, due for an­nu­al can­cer screen­ing and there are prob­lems get­ting pre­scrip­tive med­ica­tion here in the US. We can­not af­ford med­ical care. Up to yes­ter­day one of the stu­dents in Texas had a se­vere asth­ma at­tack and had to go in­to the emer­gency room and she did not have med­ical in­sur­ance. The bill was over US$800,” he said.

An­oth­er stu­dent who is study­ing law in the Unit­ed King­dom said she was part of a group ex­emp­tion ap­pli­ca­tion sub­mit­ted on May 19.  

“We sub­mit­ted an­oth­er ex­emp­tion on June 3 and since then we have been send­ing fol­low-up emails but we have not re­ceived any re­sponse,” she said.

She added, “The min­istry is not help­ful and peo­ple are telling us we are not a pri­or­i­ty. Some of us will be home­less by Au­gust 28, our lease will come to an end then and our visas will come to an end as well.”

She said her lease ex­pired in June and she was for­tu­nate to find ac­com­mo­da­tion at a friend’s home.

“I am liv­ing out of a suit­case. I came in­to con­tact with oth­er stu­dents and we are des­per­ate­ly try­ing to get our voic­es heard,” she added.

UNC ac­tivist Mar­sha Walk­er who is rep­re­sent­ing more than 100 strand­ed stu­dents from var­i­ous parts of the world said the stu­dents’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were be­ing in­fringed.

“Some na­tion­als can­not af­ford to pay the cost of VISA ex­ten­sions and are now afraid be­cause they will pass their six months stay soon.

It is their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to come home to their coun­try and we are breach­ing their rights. It is a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis and of course, the gov­ern­ment is act­ing il­le­gal­ly in stop­ping cit­i­zens,” she said.

She not­ed that three peo­ple strand­ed abroad were preg­nant and an­oth­er who suf­fered from di­a­betes had run out of med­ica­tion.

In Ju­ly Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said US$200,000 will be is­sued to the rel­e­vant min­istries to as­sist strand­ed na­tion­als in dire cir­cum­stances. He said stu­dents were be­ing repa­tri­at­ed and ex­emp­tions are be­ing grant­ed on a case by case ba­sis.