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Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has said his government has not decided how many third-country refugees deported from the United States of America (USA) will be relocated to Dominica, citing various factors that may shape the process.<\/p>\n
He made the statement during an interview with journalists on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
This decision to accept third-country refugees followed the\u00a0December 16, 2025, proclamation introducing partial visa restrictions\u00a0on Dominica.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not decided how many people we are going to be taking. And as a matter of fact, we may never end up having anybody to come,\u201d he said. This is a contingency plan that the United States has asked [its] friends to assist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skerrit continued, \u201cIt\u2019s an issue the United States has asked friends to assist it with. Because they have an immigration challenge, and they asked friends whether they were prepared to assist us in addressing this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe consider ourselves to be a friend to the united States [and] we believe that we are in a position, as small as we are, to assist the United States in addressing an issue it determines to be a national priority for it, but there is no details to say we will take 10 or we will take 25, or we will take 100 or we will take 5. We may never get to that point. Because they have not said to us, we have 5 names for you…\u201d<\/p>\n
He said once his government receives that information, it will be shared with the public.<\/p>\n
Reiterating that the U.S. arrangement is on a contingency basis, Skerrit explained, \u201cSo, if they are unable to address their issue in the manner in which and the time frame, they would like to address it, then they can say to Dominica, can you take five people? These are the five people. They give you the background of these people, their criminal history, their medical history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, he explained that based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two countries, Dominica is in a position to say to the United States, \u201cNo we don\u2019t want those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a situation where they are going to force people on us,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey are going to indicate to us who the people are, give us all the information about the people, and then we make our own assessment on the potential security impact, if at all, on our country, and if we believe it is going to be a security impact, we will say no.\u201d<\/p>\n
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