While Grenada received 108 deportees in 2013, immigration officials at ports of entry deported 135 persons for violating immigrations regulations or who did not meet all the prerequisites to be permitted into the island.
Head of the Immigration, Superintendent Jessmon Prince, said that according to the 2013 data, the incoming deportees were Grenadians who served time in prison mainly in the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, and the Caribbean; while those deported from Grenada were mainly Caribbean nationals.
He explained that 65 of the incoming deportees were classified as “criminal deportees” while 43 were those whom immigrations officials in those countries refused to land or allow to enter the country. “Permission to enter another country is at the discretion of the immigration official, and so we had a number of Grenadians who were refused to enter other countries, not just internationally but regionally,” he said.
Prince did not provide the countries who “refused to enter” Grenadians, but indicated that more persons were refuse internationally than in the region. Among the crime committed by the 65 deportees were sexually related offenses, drug possession, and trafficking and robbery with violence.
Of the 135 persons deported from Grenada, 97 were in the category of refused to enter; 18 were deported for criminal offences mainly relating to drugs; 18 violated immigration, and two were special situations in which they were ask to leave.
For security reasons, Prince did not explain why they were asked to leave, but he explained that a person can be asked to leave to avoid being deported through the legal format. “When a person is deported from another country, they cannot return without special permission, and at times it will be in the person’s best interest to ask them to leave voluntarily so that they can return without having to seek special permission from the Minister for National Security,” he said.
by Linda Straker
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