Government Task Forces on US Policy Impact Still Taking Shape

The government task forces to assess the impact of US immigration and tariff policy shifts have yet to be finalised before beginning their work, the two ministers leading them revealed on Monday.

Home Affairs Minister Jeremiah Norbert, who heads the immigration task force, told the pre-Cabinet press briefing that preparations are underway to establish the group’s terms of reference and identify key stakeholders.

“We have started bringing in individuals to see how we can prepare the terms of reference, so we would have individuals more or less mapping out who we need to serve on the task force,” he explained. “We figure we would need the Department of External Affairs, we would need social agencies, we need the police and immigration.”

Norbert added that a meeting is expected this week to finalise the structure and responsibilities of the task force.

“Hopefully sometime during the course of this week, we will be able to have our first meeting to see how we can come up with the terms of reference for this particular task force, and probably after that, I will be able to shed a little more light with you in terms of how we progress with the matters that we have to deal with,” he said.

Commerce Minister Emma Hippolyte, leading the task force on tariffs, told reporters: “Today is my official day back, so I will be speaking on that at subsequent press conferences.”

She added that following the press briefing, she would be meeting with the Cabinet to agree on the composition of her task force.

The task forces were announced last week by Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre who stated the measures by US President Donald Trump would have implications for small, open economies like Saint Lucia.

Meanwhile, Norbert was unable to provide an update on reports of Saint Lucians detained in the United States awaiting deportation.

Prime Minister Pierre previously stated that the Ministry of External Affairs is handling only eight active deportee cases. This contradicts an unverified list circulating online, which claimed that 202 Saint Lucians were on a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation enforcement list.