For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has moved to clar­i­fy re­ports re­gard­ing the repa­tri­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who sought asy­lum in the Unit­ed King­dom, stress­ing that the re­turns did not hap­pen sud­den­ly and were not a sur­prise to the Gov­ern­ment.

Sobers ex­plained that de­por­ta­tions have oc­curred grad­u­al­ly over sev­er­al years as in­di­vid­ual asy­lum claims were processed and re­ject­ed by the UK Home Of­fice.

“The UK has a sys­tem that de­ter­mines whether a claim is bona fide,” Sobers said, not­ing that in­ves­ti­ga­tions can take months or even years de­pend­ing on com­plex­i­ty.