The U.S. Em­bassy in Port of Spain has re­leased an of­fi­cial state­ment re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised over trav­el ad­vi­sories which have been is­sued for Trinidad and To­ba­go by the U.S. State De­part­ment.

The full text of the Em­bassy’s state­ment fol­lows…

The U.S. Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry for Trinidad and To­ba­go was up­dat­ed on Oc­to­ber 5 due to a change in health re­stric­tions for COVID-19.  The se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty as­pects of the ad­vi­so­ry did not change. 

Trav­el Ad­vi­sories do no tar­get spe­cif­ic coun­tries.  Each coun­try is as­signed an over­all Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry Lev­el from 1-4.  The De­part­ment’s Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry lev­els are based on es­tab­lished risk in­di­ca­tors such as health, crime, ter­ror­ism, kid­nap­ping or hostage tak­ing, civ­il un­rest, nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, and oth­er po­ten­tial risks.  Each coun­try’s lev­el is based on an as­sess­ment of do­mes­tic con­di­tions that might af­fect the wel­fare or safe­ty of U.S. cit­i­zens.

Ad­vi­sories are up­dat­ed when a change in any part of the ad­vi­so­ry oc­curs.  They are al­so up­dat­ed when the ad­vi­so­ry is low­ered. 

The De­part­ment of State has no greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty than the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of U.S. cit­i­zens over­seas.  We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing U.S. cit­i­zens with the most up-to-date, fact-based, ac­cu­rate, and trans­par­ent in­for­ma­tion to keep U.S. cit­i­zens in­formed when they are abroad.