Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says he is not wor­ried that the im­pend­ing de­por­ta­tion of 21 na­tion­als from the Unit­ed States will pose a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat to T&T.

He was com­ment­ing on Sat­ur­day’s con­fir­ma­tion from the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty of a for­mal re­quest from the US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment for the de­por­ta­tion of 17 men and four women. Dis­cus­sions are still on­go­ing with US of­fi­cials, but the min­istry con­firmed that a char­tered flight to Port-of-Spain has been ten­ta­tive­ly set for May 23.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, told Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day that Gov­ern­ment would be track­ing the de­por­tees af­ter their ar­rival and mon­i­tor­ing them af­ter­wards.

Yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge said he would be meet­ing with Vi­sion on Mis­sion and an­oth­er stake­hold­er to­day about the im­pend­ing de­por­ta­tion of the 21 men and women.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said that be­fore the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion in the Unit­ed States, on­ly cer­tain types of in­ci­dents would have trig­gered a de­por­ta­tion - the main rea­son be­ing crim­i­nal of­fences.

Giv­en the US Pres­i­dent’s pol­i­cy, he es­ti­mat­ed that by and large the vast pro­por­tion of the de­por­tees would be for im­mi­gra­tion type of­fences, such as over­stay­ing their VISA or hav­ing no work per­mit, and as such, would pose lit­tle threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

How­ev­er, Seep­er­sad said their pres­ence will cause is­sues on the job mar­ket as the “avail­abil­i­ty of jobs is far less than ide­al” and “the un­em­ploy­ment rate is way too high.”

An in­flux of peo­ple com­ing back to the coun­try, he said, would make that sit­u­a­tion more dif­fi­cult since they would be search­ing for jobs.

“So, it cer­tain­ly does cre­ate chal­lenges, but I am not se­ri­ous­ly wor­ried that this pos­es an im­mi­nent threat when it comes to the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty as­pect of it,” he said.

Mean­while, Vi­sion on Mis­sion CEO Giselle Chance said they will be meet­ing with the gov­ern­ment this week ahead of the ar­rival of the de­por­tees.

“We look for­ward to work­ing with the new ad­min­is­tra­tion in pro­vid­ing sup­port to our repa­tri­at­ed cit­i­zens, our de­por­tees,” she said.

Chance said her or­gan­i­sa­tion, over the past 20 years, has as­sist­ed at least 1,500 de­por­tees, and their suc­cess rate in terms of no re­cidi­vism by those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in their pro­gramme has been very high, over 90 per cent. She ex­plained that their re­cidi­vism suc­cess rate is based on peo­ple be­ing re-in­car­cer­at­ed with­in the lo­cal prison sys­tem.

Chance said they pro­vide in­te­gra­tion ser­vices, in­clud­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion, food, cloth­ing, coun­selling, em­ploy­ment, train­ing in spe­cif­ic ar­eas such as agri­cul­ture, bar­ber­ing and AC tech­ni­cian. She added that they al­so fa­cil­i­tate clients who do not re­quire ac­com­mo­da­tion, and they still pro­vide ser­vices they could ac­cess, in­clud­ing coun­selling and job place­ment.