A Trinida­di­an is one of four Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) na­tion­als, among 17 for­eign­ers, against whom the De­part­ment of Jus­tice says it has filed de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion ac­tions in var­i­ous US dis­trict courts, ac­cus­ing them of se­ri­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing sex­u­al abuse of a mi­nor, wire and bank fraud and dis­trib­ut­ing drugs whole­sale with­out a li­cence.

It means the for­eign­ers will be stripped of their cit­i­zen­ship.

Un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion and Na­tion­al­i­ty Act, cit­i­zen­ship may be re­voked and a cer­tifi­cate of nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion can­celled if the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion was il­le­gal­ly pro­cured or pro­cured by con­ceal­ment of a ma­te­r­i­al fact or by wil­ful mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

An ar­ti­cle from CMC said the Caribbean na­tion­als are from Ja­maica, Trinidad and To­ba­go and Haiti.

US jus­tice of­fi­cials claimed that be­fore his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion in 2016, 30-year-old Ron­nie Price of Trinidad and To­ba­go had sex­u­al in­ter­course with a fe­male who was un­der 16, a statu­to­ry rape crime to which he even­tu­al­ly plead­ed guilty.

The Jus­tice De­part­ment said dur­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ceed­ings, how­ev­er, Price false­ly tes­ti­fied and con­cealed facts that would have un­cov­ered his crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“The de­nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion com­plaint al­leges that Price en­gaged in un­law­ful con­duct dur­ing a crit­i­cal statu­to­ry pe­ri­od dur­ing which he was re­quired by law to main­tain good moral char­ac­ter; that he pro­vid­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing his nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion in­ter­view; and that he did so in or­der to con­ceal his crimes and wil­ful­ly mis­rep­re­sent ma­te­r­i­al facts that would have re­vealed his in­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the priv­i­lege of Unit­ed States cit­i­zen­ship,” it said.

Com­ment­ing on the mat­ter, Act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Todd Blanche said when crim­i­nal aliens ex­ploit the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion process by break­ing the law, there are con­se­quences.

“Crim­i­nal aliens are ly­ing about their past crimes, in­clud­ing drug deal­ers, sex­u­al preda­tors and fraud­sters. Gain­ing US cit­i­zen­ship is a priv­i­lege and un­der the stead­fast lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Trump, this De­part­ment of Jus­tice main­tains a ze­ro-tol­er­ance pol­i­cy for the abuse of this process,” said Blanche.

“We con­tin­ue to work around the clock with our in­ter-agency part­ners to make sure US cit­i­zen­ship is grant­ed to those who tru­ly de­serve it,” he added.