In a dramatic reversal of immigration policy, the Mottley administration has reintroduced a visa requirement for Haiti, a fellow CARICOM member state, barely a year on, claiming an influx of Haitians seeking to stay.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Ambassador to CARICOM David Comissiong gave no figures but said the Government was forced to reimpose the measure because Haitians were flocking to Barbados believing they could live and work here.

“The Barbados Government felt like it did not have a choice. We didn’t want to do it, but after considering all of the possible ways of dealing with the problem, it came to the conclusion that unfortunately the only way to deal with the problem was to impose some form of visa requirement, so it was done reluctantly. The position was becoming untenable and corrective measures had to be taken.”

Prime Minister Mottley had initially lifted the visa requirement last July, citing the discrimination against another CARICOM member state.

But with the introduction of Copa Airlines flights from Panama City, many Haitians took advantage of the connecting flight to travel to Barbados in large numbers.

Ambassador Comissiong said it left Government with no choice but to enforce visa requirements on certain categories of Haitians.

The visa restrictions have been in place since last month, he said. This marks a rollback to the original requirements to obtain an entry visa.

He told Barbados TODAY: “Haitians who possess official passports, or Haitians who have a business person’s stamp in their passport or who possess US, Canadian, British or European Union visas don’t require visas to come to Barbados, but Haitians who don’t fall into any of those categories require a visa to come to Barbados.

“Government had removed the visa requirement, but the removal of the visa requirement coincided with the commencement of Copa Airlines flights from Panama to Barbados.

“A large number of Haitians started to use those flights to come into Barbados and most of them came with the understanding or expectation they could work in Barbados and so after some time the Government decided it had to reimpose some form of visa requirements.

“So some form of visa requirement has been reimposed but the Government decided to try to exempt as many categories as possible from that requirement.”

Despite the reintroduction of restrictions, the CARICOM Ambassador acknowledged this was in breach of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which allowed members of CARICOM to enjoy free access - the original reason prompting their removal last year.

But he said Government felt like it had no choice but to revert to the original measures.

The CARICOM treaty makes provisions for a member state to suspend rule if it faced negative consequences as a result, he noted.

“Under the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, Haitians are supposed to enjoy this free access, so the Barbados Government would want to revert to a situation of visa-free access as soon as possible.

“When those problems are corrected I believe Barbados will eagerly go back to the visa-free regime with Haiti, but at the same time Government has to be realistic and sensible,” the ambassador said.

But the envoy accused the Haitian government of not educating its citizens on the provisions of the visa-free travel, which, he said, led to complications for Barbadian authorities.

He said: “Enough work had not been done in Haiti to properly inform and educate the Haitian people about the rules and requirements pertaining to visa-free travel in the region.

“What has to be understood is that the Haitians were coming, thinking that they were simply entitled to live and work in Barbados which was incorrect.

“So Barbados was being faced with a problem not of its making, because it is not the responsibility of the Barbados Government to inform or educate the population of Haiti about the visa-free travel regime in the Caribbean Community. That having not been done Barbados was the one facing the problem.”

While Ambassador Comissiong admitted that Government had not made its reversal decision public, he said it was communicated to the relevant authorities including the Haitian Government, immigration authorities and airline authorities.

Even as it rolled back its policy towards the poorest member state in CARICOM, Minister of Foreign Affairs Senator Dr.

Jerome Walcott announced the removal of visa requirements for 30 countries worldwide as a means of promoting tourism and investment.

Those countries included were African nations Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Morocco; the Gulf states of Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and Qatar; and the Asian nations of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and India. randybennett@barbadostoday.bb