Three days af­ter they ar­rived in T&T, the po­lice ser­vice has vowed to as­sist in the re­set­tle­ment of de­por­tees.

The 17 de­por­tees, who com­prise 15 men and two women - ar­rived in the coun­try just be­fore 6 am on Sat­ur­day. 

They were met by of­fi­cers of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) and of­fi­cials from Vi­sion On Mis­sion to as­sist them as they ad­just to life in T&T.

Of the 17 de­por­tees who ar­rived, 15 were al­lowed to go free, while two were tak­en in­to cus­tody.

Sources con­firmed that the two men were ar­rest­ed for out­stand­ing war­rants re­lat­ed to “decades-old” crimes com­mit­ted be­fore they mi­grat­ed.

Po­lice said the men would be ques­tioned in re­la­tion to the crimes.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice sought to as­sure the pub­lic that they were part of a “mul­ti-agency op­er­a­tion,” to fa­cil­i­tate the rein­te­gra­tion of the de­por­tees.

In the re­lease, DCP In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions Suzette Mar­tin said that the re-set­tle­ment would be sub­ject to con­tin­u­ous as­sess­ments and re­views to en­sure the best re­sults.

“This process is it­er­a­tive and will be guid­ed by on­go­ing as­sess­ments to en­sure ap­pro­pri­ate in­ter­ven­tions and sup­port mech­a­nisms are in place at every stage,”  she said.

On Sun­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said that lo­cal law en­force­ment would do their part in mon­i­tor­ing the move­ments and ac­tiv­i­ties of the de­por­tees to en­sure their smooth tran­si­tion in­to the coun­try. 

He not­ed that while not every de­por­tee was a crim­i­nal, those with crim­i­nal back­grounds would not be al­lowed to fall back in­to their il­le­gal lifestyles.

On Sun­day, three of the de­por­tees spoke with Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly and said they were all “not bad” and should “be wel­comed back with open arms and a warm heart.”

Some of those de­port­ed were sent back be­cause of im­mi­gra­tion vi­o­la­tions un­der the US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion.

—Shane Su­perville