Foreign Affairs Minister Dennis Moses is expected to review a report sent by senior immigration officers about 12 Jamaican nationals who were denied entry into T&T over the Easter weekend.
The T&T Guardian understands that the report has cleared all immigration officers who were on duty at the Piarco International Airport on the day that the Jamaicans would have arrived via two separate flights.
After being refused entry to T&T, the Jamaicans turned to social media calling for all Jamaicans to boycott visiting T&T and using any T&T products. The Jamaicans claimed that they were ill-treated and made to lie on the cold ground to sleep while they were being processed to be sent back home. Some of them claimed that they were also denied food and water.
However, a senior official at the Immigration Division, who wished not to be identified, told the T&T Guardian that no immigration officer, after a thorough investigation was conducted, was found to have acted irresponsibly or in a discriminatory manner towards the Jamaicans.
It was, however, found that the Jamaican nationals were not admissible based on their declarations and on interviews conducted by immigration officers, the source said.
The T&T Guardian was also told that three per cent of all arriving passengers into T&T are refused entry and the few who are sent back to their respective home countries do not satisfy the requirements for entry.
The immigration official also made reference to the Immigration Act, which clarifies the role of the transportation company that would have brought the Jamaican nationals to the country.
“The Act Section 33 and 34 states: The transportation company that brought to T&T a person seeking admission thereto shall pay all costs of his detention,” the official said.
The official added that according to the act, all transportation companies are “directed to pay deportation or rejection costs” for passengers and “at their expense detain and guard safely the person concerned until he can be placed on board the vessel on which he is to be carried” and also to “treat in a humane manner and feed such person.”
Efforts to reach an official at state-owned Caribbean Airlines, who brought in the Jamaican nationals, for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.