A total of four persons from St. Kitts and Nevis were deported from the United States in 2022, according to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Annual Report.

It said those removed included noncitizens arrested by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in the interior of the United States, as well as those apprehended by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) along the Southwest Border and subsequently transferred to ERO for removal. The report said that in 2022, ERO conducted nearly twice the number of administrative arrests it made in 2021.

However, while the number of administrative arrests of noncitizens with criminal histories in 2022 was comparable to 2021, the number of arrests in the category of “other immigration violators” increased significantly as a result of the increase in Border Patrol encounters and ERO’s assistance to CBP in completing the processing of these cases in the United States.

Twenty-eight nationals of other countries in the OECS were also deported from the United States according to the report. St. Vincent and the Grenadines had a total of 10 deportees, five were Dominicans, five Grenadians and four each were from Antigua and Barbuda, and St Lucia.  The ICE report did not clearly outline the reasons for the deportations or the offences they committed.