Grenada yet to receive notification of arrival of US deportees

by Linda Straker 

• From 2019 to 2024, US deported 40 people to Grenada
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not received notification about deportees coming to Grenada
• Deportation Registration Act of 2003 requires RGPF to have deportee registry

Neila Ettienne, Press Secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, said that neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Grenada Embassy in Washington have received any notification from the US State Department of Grenadians currently in detention centres or any US facility awaiting or preparing for deportation.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on 20 January 2025, US law enforcement officials have been very active enforcing the Executive Order for mass deportation of undocumented migrants or criminal convicts.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not received any notification about any deportees coming to Grenada,” said Ettienne who confirmed that Grenada’s immigration division does have a mechanism for receiving anyone deported to the country.

From 2019 to 2024, the US Immigration and Customs Agency deported 40 people to Grenada. It’s not known how many were deported from the United Kingdom, Canada, Caricom and other jurisdictions.

Grenada’s Deportation Registration Act which came into effect on 31 October 2003, requires the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) to have a registry of all deportees. The act is “An Act to make provision for persons who were convicted of certain serious offences in a foreign country and deported to Grenada, subject to an application to the High Court by the Commissioner of Police, to be designated as restricted persons and for a central register to be kept under the management of the Commissioner.”

Some can be designated as restricted persons once it is necessary to do so in the interest of public safety or public order.

A person who is a citizen of Grenada can be designated as a restricted person if he or she has been convicted of a specified offence in a foreign state; if that person is the subject of a deportation order made in the foreign state or who has elected to return to Grenada from that state in lieu of deportation; and if the person whose conduct and activities have been of such a nature that he or she may be reasonably regarded as constituting a threat to the public safety or public order of Grenada.

It is not known how many people are currently on the deportation list, nor how many are classified as restricted.