Antigua PM says TCN agreement with US still being worked out

ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – The Antigua and Barbuda government is reiterating that funding and support arrangements must be put in place even as several Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries have agreed to accept third-country national (TCN) deportees from the United States.

Antigua and Barbuda is among several Caricom countries that have either signed or are still in the process of negotiating with Washington on the migration policy and, speaking on his weekly radio programme, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that negotiations were nearing completion, but compensation and arrangements with an international organisation would be addressed separately.

“The issue of compensation, they asked us to negotiate a separate agreement with them rather than put it in the TCN itself,” he told radio listeners, adding that the government wanted to avoid accepting people before securing the resources needed to support them.