TT: Immigration treatment of TTians cause anti-American sentiment

A Trincity resident was detained in New York for three days and deported back to T&T yesterday.

Ann Marie Lezama had gone to New York to visit her uncle, her sister, Crystal, said yesterday.

Crystal said Lezama, 32, left on Tuesday on a North American Airlines flight.

She said Lezama had held a 10-year US visa and had been to the US once.

“Our uncle is a citizen and our mother and other family are all there,” she said.

“We can’t understand why she was sent back.”

Crystal, who picked up Lezama at the airport, said she was detained by US immigration and shackled in a room.

All her money (US$750) was taken, she added.

“They let her bathe once in all that time,” Crystal said.

“They never told her why they were sending her back. They asked her if she was going to work and she said ‘no.’ They cancelled her visa and told her she couldn’t return for five years.”

Crystal said her sister had a husband and son and had never thought of staying in the US.

“But she got bad treatment. It was a big embarrassment for nothing — wicked,” she said.

Why is HSC/INS treating innocent TTians like this? It was not 19 TTians who took 3000 American lives at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Yet, while Immigration officials detain, shackle, and rob TT citizens, Saudis and residents of Muslim countries are not treated shabbily at all. In fact, HSD/INS go out of their way to ensure that Arab and Muslim feelings are not hurt by necessary security procedures.

If Ann Marie Lezama had been to the U.S. only once even though she had a 10-year U.S. visa, on what grounds did HSC/INS detain, shackle, and deport her?

TT is of vital strategic importance to the U.S.

While historically Algeria was the United States’ largest supplier of LNG, since 2000 it has been far surpassed by Trinidad and Tobago, which now serves as the source for a full 66 percent of the [U.S.'s] LNG imports. The United States imported 151 Bcf (3.2 million tons) from Trinidad and Tobago in 2002

It appears that for TT citizens to receive better treatment from U.S. Immigrationn officials that they must commit some crime on American soil causing a massive loss of American life. TTians are not into that ... unless they are Muslim and desire to destabilize and control a country.

It is high time that PM Patrick Manning have a serious talk with President George W. Bush about the treatment TTians with legal and legitimate visas have been receiving when they travel to the U.S.

If the Bush administration does not want TTians to enter the U.S., all that is required is that the word be said by the U.S. Consular General in Port of Spain.

As it stands, this type of humiliation handed to innocent citizens of TT will feed the negative and anti-Bush/anti-American media, which will in turn translate into rising anti-American/anti-Bush sentiment. That is the last thing the U.S. needs in a country that is of strategic importance.