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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Vision on Mission: State must prepare for possible deportee influx

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20 days ago
20250130
Vision on Mission CEO Giselle Chance

Vision on Mission CEO Giselle Chance

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Vi­sion on Mis­sion (VoM), a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion (NGO) that as­sists the State with re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing de­por­tees, says Gov­ern­ment must act now if hun­dreds of cit­i­zens are to be sent back to this coun­try from the Unit­ed States.

VoM CEO Giselle Chance yes­ter­day said if a list pur­port­ing to be from the US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE), which states 1,197 T&T na­tion­als are to be de­port­ed, is true, that is cause for con­cern.

“We al­ready have a lim­it­ed num­ber of re­sources for per­sons com­ing in with the stig­ma of be­ing de­port­ed, some of them hav­ing crim­i­nal records. As far as VoM is con­cerned we are al­most at ca­pac­i­ty. We fluc­tu­ate be­tween 55 to 60 peo­ple at our Waller­field fa­cil­i­ty and there is a wait­ing list. So, I am very con­cerned about our abil­i­ty to ab­sorb in­creased num­bers,” she said.

“It would mean we have to look at how quick­ly we re-in­te­grate per­sons who al­ready ex­ist in the pro­gramme, and we would not want to have peo­ple re-in­te­grate too quick­ly with­out them get­ting a good foot­ing.”

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to ver­i­fy the list yes­ter­day but there is no record of it on ICE’s web­site or so­cial me­dia pages.

In a brief state­ment, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said: “Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to ful­ly co­op­er­ate with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca on is­sues re­lat­ed to mi­gra­tion, and de­por­ta­tion of our na­tion­als from the Unit­ed States.

“Of note, such de­por­ta­tions have been on­go­ing for years, with ex­cel­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween the re­spec­tive teams and de­part­ments in­volved in these ex­er­cis­es. This com­mu­ni­ca­tion and part­ner­ship con­tin­ues. We have not been able to ver­i­fy the var­i­ous un­of­fi­cial “list­ings” and sim­i­lar doc­u­ments that are in re­cent cir­cu­la­tion, and cau­tion against re­liance on such.”

Chance said the State must reach out to or­gan­i­sa­tions that work with de­por­tees to au­dit their ca­pac­i­ty be­fore any in­flux oc­curs.

“It should not be that when they ar­rive, we are now get­ting a call to find out if we have ten beds avail­able. That process should start from now. We are see­ing what is hap­pen­ing with oth­er coun­tries, let us get proac­tive. The good thing is that thank­ful­ly, and I must give ku­dos, the State has made in­vest­ments in agen­cies like VoM,” she said.

She ex­plained that quite a few de­por­tees re-join fam­i­ly mem­bers in T&T on their re­turn but there are some with no fa­mil­ial ties and nowhere to go. That is when VoM is con­tact­ed for its ser­vices.

Chance added, “I would ad­vise that they reach out to us and be­gin to do that au­dit. Do you need more beds? Do you need more care pack­ages? Do you need fi­nances so per­sons can trav­el to their rel­a­tives or con­tact them? Let us do that au­dit and see how NGOs and faith-based (or­gan­i­sa­tions) can work with the State to pro­vide the best sup­port be­cause what we don’t want them to do is come here and be a vic­tim or per­pe­tra­tor of crime.”

The VoM CEO said, from her ex­pe­ri­ence, it is easy for those de­port­ed with a crim­i­nal his­to­ry to re­sume that life in T&T.

“The re­al­i­ty is that for those who would have been heav­i­ly in­volved in crime, drug-re­lat­ed, gun-re­lat­ed, gang cul­ture abroad, their first op­tion is usu­al­ly not to come to VoM, be­cause they see it as a hin­drance to their usu­al lifestyle. So those who are heav­i­ly in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty abroad, most of them would have ties in Trinidad but they would alert their peo­ple be­fore they come, and they would re­ceive some lev­el of sup­port from crim­i­nal el­e­ments,” Chance warned.

She said bor­der pro­tec­tion of­fi­cials must get a full crim­i­nal his­to­ry of each de­por­tee.

US de­por­tee Michael Sen­non, who is now a gym in­struc­tor, ex­plained that it is very easy to fall back in­to a life of crime in this coun­try. Sen­non was in­car­cer­at­ed in New York for more than three decades and was de­port­ed when he turned 51.

“It is very easy to get back in­volved in crime, there are so many neg­a­tive el­e­ments out here and so many peo­ple are caught in this mind­set of the fast life, fast cars, fast girls, fast mon­ey, so when things are mov­ing slow and more laid back than in Amer­i­ca then it would be easy for some­one to jump back to their old ways,” Sen­non ex­plained.

He said he faced chal­lenges re­turn­ing to a coun­try he left when he was three years old.

“Un­cer­tain­ty, be­cause my fam­i­ly did not take to me due to the ru­mours of me be­ing in­car­cer­at­ed in the US. My fa­ther nev­er bragged about it, but he was al­ways open and hon­est with his sib­lings about what I did. So, when it was time for me to come to Trinidad, no­body want­ed to have any deal­ings with me, and they left me at the air­port just to fig­ure it out. So, I had no choice but to go to the pro­gramme,” he said, re­fer­ring to a pro­gramme fa­cil­i­tat­ed by VoM.

“The pro­gramme is what they call in the US like a bus stop or a place where you can catch your­self and rest and what’s so good about this pro­gramme is you don’t have to wor­ry about clothes, food and shel­ter be­cause they fa­cil­i­tate that for you. They al­so help you to get a job, so when you don’t have to wor­ry about those things, you can put things in place to put your­self to­geth­er if you are se­ri­ous but some peo­ple take it for grant­ed and go down the wrong path,” Sen­non ex­plained.

He said it is im­por­tant for new­ly de­port­ed peo­ple to have pa­tience and un­der­stand that rein­te­gra­tion is a re­build­ing process.

“Small work beats no work, and my first job was go­ing in­to the pris­ons and talk­ing to guys and then my oth­er job was with CEPEP and I took my­self back to school when I saved my mon­ey, which is part of the VoM pro­gramme—a mon­ey man­age­ment pro­gramme where you are al­lowed to save a cer­tain amount of mon­ey from your cheque.

“I was able to go back to school to be a per­son­al train­er. So, I was able to be­come a per­son­al train­er at Mil­le­ni­um Gym.”


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