US has not ‘reached out’ to Barbados on refugee agreement – minister

Barbados has not ruled out the possibility of joining its Caribbean neighbours in taking US asylum-seekers.

However, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kerrie Symmonds has given the assurance that the country had not yet been approached by the US to discuss any potential refugee agreement.

Last week, the Donald Trump administration reached agreements with Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to host foreign nationals seeking asylum, as the US continues to spurn refugees from conflict and civil strife around the globe. This week, Saint Lucia became the fourth CARICOM member to finalise a similar arrangement with Washington to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in third world countries.

“They are going around the Caribbean, and I would like to think that we would not be left out. They have not reached out to us yet, so we will just wait and see,” Symmonds told Barbados TODAY in an interview. “It is not something we are looking forward to …”

Asked whether Barbados would be willing to accept foreign asylum-seekers, the foreign minister replied: “We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” though he did not rule out the possibility.

Symmonds declined to comment on what conditions Barbados might attach to any deal with the US, reiterating that the country had not yet heard from the Trump administration.

 The minister noted that Antigua and Barbuda had stipulated that it would not accept asylum-seekers with criminal records, while Dominica has said there were “careful deliberations of the need to avoid receiving violent individuals or individuals who will compromise the security of Dominica”.

In Roseau, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit described his country’s arrangement as “one of the primary areas of collaboration” following the imposition of partial US visa restrictions. The Dominican government has been in discussions with American officials in efforts to resolve those entry limitations.

Skerrit did not specify when the transfer of asylum-seekers might begin.

With a population of roughly 72 000, Dominica’s announcement sparked concerns among citizens about whether the island can absorb additional arrivals.

Last month, the Trump administration expanded travel restrictions to 20 more countries, including Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda — the only CARICOM nations on the list. The measures took effect on January 1. CARICOM member state Haiti was on the original list of countries banned from visa applications.

The Trump administration has made similar arrangements with other nations, including Belize and Paraguay, as part of wider efforts to press Latin American and African states to take in asylum-seekers.

Palau, a western Pacific archipelago roughly one-sixth the size of Barbados, signed a deal last month worth US$75m (BDS$150m) in foreign aid after five months of negotiation.

Trump has largely frozen traditional refugee resettlement to the US after suspending its refugee admissions programme in January 2025, arguing that new arrivals would be “detrimental to the interests” of the United States. For the 2026 fiscal year, the US – the world’s richest nation with a population of 330m people – has set a record-low ceiling of 7 500 refugee admissions, down from the 125 000 target under the previous Joe Biden administration, with priority given in official guidance to white South Africans of Afrikaner descent.