The idea of mak­ing amend­ments or changes to the T&T Con­sti­tu­tion on its im­mi­gra­tion laws, in the in­ter­est of strength­en­ing the coun­try’s chances of com­pet­ing in world foot­ball, was quick­ly shot down by for­mer Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews on Tues­day.

Gand­hi-An­drews re­spond­ed to con­cerns by na­tion­al foot­ball coach An­gus Eve at a re­cent train­ing ses­sion, that the coun­try’s im­mi­gra­tion laws are ar­cha­ic and have been a stum­bling block in their at­tempts to re­cruit play­ers who live in oth­er coun­tries but have T&T parent­age.

Eng­lish-born Ryan In­niss, a pro­fes­sion­al foot­baller who plays as a cen­tre-back for EFL League One club Charl­ton Ath­let­ic, has been on the radar of na­tion­al coach­es Ter­ry Fen­wick and Eve as one of many play­ers who po­ten­tial­ly can rep­re­sent the So­ca War­riors. Both have been pre­vent­ed from se­cur­ing his ser­vices be­cause the cit­i­zen­ship laws on­ly al­low for one gen­er­a­tion to have dual na­tion­al­i­ty.

On Tues­day she said, “Our cit­i­zen­ship laws on­ly al­low for one gen­er­a­tion to have dual na­tion­al­i­ty. The on­ly coun­try that I am fa­mil­iar with for the grand­par­ents to pass down na­tion­al­i­ty is the UK, but our con­sti­tu­tion on­ly al­lows for cit­i­zen­ship to be passed down one gen­er­a­tion. So for ex­am­ple, a cit­i­zen of T&T has a child abroad, that child will be a dual cit­i­zen and he can’t pass cit­i­zen­ship down to his child.”

Gand­hi-An­drews as­sured that Eve can ex­plore the “Cit­i­zens Act” route where he can find a so­lu­tion to his con­cerns, but she scuffed at the idea of con­sti­tu­tion­al change, say­ing: “I don’t think that war­rants us chang­ing the con­sti­tu­tion for a hand­ful of peo­ple re­al­ly, and that’s my per­son­al opin­ion be­cause it is re­al­ly just a hand­ful of peo­ple. Plus I am firm in the view that we have re­al­ly tal­ent­ed peo­ple here who can be tapped in­to, who were born right here in T&T. And while they may not have had the ex­pe­ri­ence of be­ing trained in a for­eign coun­try or not, I do be­lieve we have the tal­ent here.”

“Most coun­tries have shied away from cit­i­zen­ship go­ing down gen­er­a­tions but we do have pro­vi­sions un­der the cit­i­zen­ship act. In Sec­tion 5 of the cit­i­zen­ship act, you will see who can be reg­is­tered as a cit­i­zen of T&T, in terms of a mi­nor child, where the child has to take the oath of al­le­giance be­fore they be­come an adult be­tween 18-19. The on­ly way an adult can be a cit­i­zen of T&T is if they were born to a cit­i­zen of T&T,” Gand­hi-An­drews ex­plained.

How­ev­er, Eve, who ad­mit­ted he did not want to en­gage in a war of words with any­one, high­light­ed au­then­tic sta­tis­tics which showed that more than half of the Mo­roc­can team was born in an­oth­er coun­try; 38 per cent of play­ers on Tunisia’s team were born in France; and Uruguay, Iran, Bel­gium, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Den­mark, Eng­land, Japan, Mex­i­co and the Nether­lands have four per­cent of for­eign-based play­ers.

The sta­tis­tics were al­so fol­lowed by a note by Eve that said: “This is what those with pow­er to change the Con­sti­tu­tion don’t un­der­stand.”

Eve and the So­ca War­riors are prepar­ing for two more match­es to se­cure the win in Group C of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League which will see them be­ing el­e­vat­ed to Group ‘A’ and en­sure qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup next year.

The So­ca War­riors will first take on the Ba­hamas on March 24 away be­fore re­turn­ing home to the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go to face Nicaragua in their fi­nal match on March 27.