The United Progressive Party (UPP) has declared it will not accept a single deportee matching the profile described by the United States government, as negotiations over the potential transfer of third-country nationals to Antigua and Barbuda continue. According to Antigua Observer, Senator Jonathan Wehner outlined the party's firm position, leaving no room for compromise regardless of how the current administration frames any such arrangement.
Wehner argued that the government's stated intention to accept only skilled individuals with clean criminal and medical records is fundamentally at odds with the terms already put forward by Washington.
"Our government, through the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Gaston Browne, has announced that he wants to accept skilled individuals… whose criminal and medical records are up to par. Now clearly the Prime Minister is either missing the point of where the United States is coming from, or he is being willfully ignorant, because the Secretary of State… made that declaration about the most despicable perverts, pedophiles, child rapists, and the further away the better," Wehner said.
The senator insisted that the United States has been explicit about the nature of the individuals it seeks to transfer, making the government's selective criteria unrealistic.
"We cannot be talking about we're looking for skilled individuals, or we're looking for individuals without a criminal record when the starting point of America is we're sending… the undesirables. So, from the United Progressive Party standpoint, it is our position that we are not to accept even one individual who fits into that category. We don't want even one of those individuals in our society," Wehner said.
Wehner further argued that it is ordinary Antiguan and Barbudan families — not government officials — who would ultimately bear the consequences of any such arrangement. He questioned whether elected representatives have a right to expose residents to risks of this nature without prior public consultation.
The UPP senator also pointed to the country's existing challenges with crime as a critical factor in the party's position, arguing that Antigua and Barbuda lacks the capacity to absorb additional risk while law enforcement continues to contend with a rise in violent incidents.
