AKASH SAMA­ROO

One group rep­re­sent­ing T&T na­tion­als who can­not re­turn home due to COVID-19 bor­der re­stric­tions says gov­ern­ment should re­move the ex­emp­tion process al­to­geth­er.

The group, Strand­ed TT Na­tion­als Abroad, which com­pris­es some 200 na­tion­als in the US who are try­ing to re­turn home, says they see no rea­son for the ex­emp­tion process, call­ing it cum­ber­some and in­ef­fi­cient.

In an in­ter­view with CNC3's The Morn­ing Brew, spokes­woman De­bra Ben­skin said sev­er­al ap­pli­cants are not even af­ford­ed a re­ply in­di­cat­ing why they were de­nied.

She says sev­er­al na­tion­als in the US are now strug­gling with the cold of win­ter and some are even home­less. She be­lieves the ex­emp­tion process is il­log­i­cal as there al­ready are sys­tems in place for gov­ern­ment to grant ap­provals based on COVID-19 test­ing.

“[Gov­ern­ment] needs to re­move the ex­emp­tion,” De­bra Ben­skin main­tains.  “Let them come with a PCR test, ex­pand the quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties, ex­pand the med­ical staff and al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion.”

She added: “You've left T&T na­tion­als in dan­ger zones, and they have a high­er risk of get­ting in­fect­ed the longer they stay in the dan­ger zone.”

And De­bra Ben­skin warns that in the mean­while, peo­ple are cap­i­tal­is­ing on the plight of strand­ed Tri­nis.  In light of that, she ar­gues, Caribbean Air­lines and Gov­ern­ment could be do­ing more to ab­sorb the cost of re­turn­ing home.

“Why is Caribbean Air­lines do­ing that? If you have a tick­et to re­turn, why can’t they [Caribbean Air­lines] do what­ev­er they do and let them [strand­ed Tri­nis] use that tick­et when they get the ex­emp­tion to come home?  Why do they [strand­ed Tri­nis] have to fur­ther look for funds? To me that is the re­al virus emerg­ing here—price goug­ing,” she says.