Gaston Browne, Ronald Sanders, and other top officials – including their family members – could lose their U.S. visas under Washington’s expanded national security policies.
Browne and Sanders have been working in Caricom and at the Organisation of American States to damage U.S. regional security initiatives designed to foreign military threats from its southern maritime border. The U.S. is concerned about Browne’s personal relations with the Chinese government, as it considers Beijing as an impending future military threat in the Caribbean.
“Ambassador Sanders has put more energy into helping China against the United States than he has into working with the Americans to solve the visa crisis,” a well-placed source in Washington said.
Sanders reportedly has been pressuring Caricom members to promote Beijing’s strategic interests against the U.S.
These actions run afoul of new U.S. policies to push external threats out of the region, and could cause the State Department to revoke the visas of Sanders, Browne, and other Antigua and Barbuda officials plus their family members.
Browne’s foreign ministry denied on April 22 that the U.S. had already pulled the prime minister’s visa.
State Department issued announcement on April 16
On April 16, the U.S. Department of State announced what it called “a significant expansion of an existing visa restriction policy that targets those working on behalf of U.S. adversaries to undermine our national interests in our hemisphere including regional security and democratic sovereignty.”
“This expanded policy enables us to restrict U.S. visas for nationals of countries in our region who, while within Western Hemisphere countries and while intentionally acting on behalf of adversarial countries, their agents, or enterprises, knowingly direct, authorize, fund, or provide significant support to, or carry out activities that are adversarial to and undermine America’s interests in our hemisphere. These individuals – and their immediate family members – will be generally ineligible for entry into the United States.”
“Activities include but are not limited to: enabling adversarial powers to acquire or control key assets and strategic resources in our hemisphere; destabilizing regional security efforts; undermining American economic interests; and conducting influence operations designed to undermine the sovereignty and stability of nations in our region,” the State Department announcement said.
The State Department said it has already “taken steps to impose visa restrictions on 26 individuals across our hemisphere who have engaged in these activities.” It did not specify who they are.
Leave a Reply