Editorial | No refugee tourism

Jamaica hasn’t revealed if it, too, has been approached by Donald Trump’s transition team to warehouse immigrants deported from the United States after Mr Trump assumes office next year. It is, nonetheless, clear that this is an issue on which the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is in need of a common position for dealing with the new Trump presidency.

There can be only one region-wide answer to any such request, and it is the one to which The Bahamas, a full CARICOM member, has already given: a resounding “No!”

The Turks and Caicos Islands, a CARICOM associate member which is reported to be one of the countries on Mr Trump’s list as a potential refugee destination, has signalled its irritation at Mr Trump’s presumption and its disinclination to do anyone’s bidding, while Grenada, a full CARICOM member, has said that it has had no engagement with Mr Trump’s team.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is not that this newspaper is against the countries of the Caribbean, and particularly the members of CARICOM, of which Jamaica is a part, granting asylum to people who flee their homes for fear of persecution or other reasons that should legitimately afford them refugee or asylum status. But these are deeply moral components of international human rights law which should not be subjected to transactional arrangements between states. That would be to diminish a critical element of the global human rights regime, and makes this region, which holds itself out as a standard-bearer and defender of fundamental rights, complicit in their erosion, or the potential thereof. Today, it is a seemingly benign alternative place of asylum; tomorrow it might well be a request to corral people into concentration camps.

Indeed, the Trump proposal carries the bitterest notes of the infamous, and now collapsed, deal for Britain to transport asylum seekers from that country to Rwanda.

Illegal immigration, especially through its southern border with Mexico, is a hot-button political issue in the United States, which has an estimated 11 million undocumented residents.

In his first go as president, Mr Trump threatened to build a wall along the near 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. In the latest campaign, Mr Trump promised mass deportations, which experts say, while likely to be initially popular, would hurt America’s economy. The prospects of thousands of citizens returning could also be destabilising for the Caribbean.

WAREHOUSING INITIATIVE

With respect to his warehousing initiative, Mr Trump is looking for places willing to take in deportees when their home countries refuse to accept them, or, as frequently happens in these situations, if there is a dispute over a person’s nationality.

The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and Panama are among the proposed destinations. The Bahamian prime minister, Phillip Davis, has, rightly, dismissed out of hand the request for his country to be part of the scheme.

“Since the prime minister rejected this proposal there has been no further engagement on or discussion with the Trump transition team,” a Bahamas government statement said.

Arlington Musgrove, Turks and Caicos immigration minister, told the Miami Herald newspaper that “unilateral imposition of third-country deportation policies, such as those reportedly under consideration by the incoming Trump administration, are fundamentally at odds with international norms and legal standards. The Turks and Caicos Islands is a British overseas territory with substantial internal self-government, while London retains control over the territory’s foreign policy.

Grenada has said it has received no request from Mr Trump’s team and has therefore had no discussion with them on the matter.

Perhaps!

PLACE ON CARICOM AGENDA

However, this topic is one of those that the Grenadian prime minister, Dickon Mitchell, in his role as CARICOM’s chairman, should place on the agenda for discussion by the community’s leaders to plan a unified strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, as was previously recommended by The Gleaner.

As small, poor, most island, developing states, CARICOM’s members are clearly susceptible to pressure from its rich and powerful neighbour to the north. Moreover, Mr Trump’s go-to negotiating tactic is to, where possible, divide and rule.

China’s role in the Caribbean, as the region’s major source of development financing, is likely to be a point of tension with Washington, which sees Beijing as a geo-strategic and economic rival. Global warming and climate, which Mr Trump calls a “hoax”, but which pose existential threats to CARICOM states, could be another point of tension, especially given the region’s need to access financing to harden its infrastructure against extreme weather events and higher seas.

The community has a better chance of maintaining its principles and surviving the Trump presidency largely unscathed, or not overly battered, if it hangs together, with a coordinated strategy for dealing with the United States. Any such strategy has to rest on well-defined and clearly articulated policies and priorities, as well as agreed red lines. The preparation should happen now, not when Mr Trump is sitting in the Oval Office.