1,593 deportees let looseBy FRANCIS JOSEPH Thursday, December 28 2006
WITHIN the past seven years, 1,593 Trinidad and Tobago nationals were deported from the United States after committing violent crimes such as unlawful killing, kidnapping, robbery, grand larceny and fraud.
And these persons, some of whom have served time in America’s largest and most violent prisons, are walking free on the streets of TT.
The TT nationals were among 36,000 criminals deported to the Caribbean as the United States tries to get rid of unwanted elements in certain high-risk cities of that country, the Department of Homeland Security revealed yesterday.
The US is also trying to weed out persons who may be inclined to commit terrorist acts after September 11, 2001.
The deportees, according to local police officials, are being blamed for the upsurge in criminal activity over the last five years in Trinidad. Police believe that the deportees are responsible for the increase in murders, gangland type crimes, kidnapping, and robbery associated with violence.
The TT nationals were described as non-US citizens who committed crimes while living illegally in the United States or as greencard holders. They travelled to the US and were allowed to stay for short periods ranging from three to six months. But they filtered into the black communities in certain cities and stayed illegally, only to be caught up in criminal activitity.
But not all convicted TT nationals have been deported. Keith Andre Glaude was jailed for two years in 2002 for his role in attempting to export guns to Trinidad in 2001. For his decision to testify in a Fort Lauderdale Court against top ranking Jamaat-al-Muslimeen member Lance Small in 2005, Glaude was allowed to remain in the US.
Another Trinidadian who gave evidence at the same trial, was also convicted in the US, deported, but sneaked back in at a later stage. He too, was allowed to stay in the US as a result of his testimony against Small.
But senior local police sources admitted that while the names of the deportees are told to them by the US, there is no monitoring system in Trinidad and Tobago to keep an eye on these nationals.
As a result, they just filter back into the TT system, enhance criminal activity by “teaching” the locals how crimes should be committed and “boldfacedly” commit daylight crimes, ignorant to the presence of police, army patrols and skyships.
A senior police officer said it was only when deportees were returning to “paradise” that kidnappings surged. He felt that Government should consider using an electronic monitor on these deportees for a certain period after their arrival so the local authorities would be able to find them.
Efforts to reach Commissioner of Police Trevor Paul for comment yesterday proved futile while National Security Minister Martin Joseph promised to release a statement to Newsday “soon.”
The Spanish-speaking nation of the Dominican Republic, located next to Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, topped the Caribbean deportee scale with a whopping 17,527 or almost half the number of deportees sent back during the seven-year stretch.
Jamaica, which according to a recent report tabled in that country’s parliament by the island’s Minister of National Security is facing a significant rise in horrendous violent crime because of deportees, was second.
They received a massive 11,455 criminal aliens since 1998, or almost one third of the deportees. The largest number was sent back in 2004; a whopping 1,648.
