As part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to push migrants out of the United States, American diplomats are quietly touring the Caribbean asking them to take in asylum seekers.

The response has been uneven. Some island states are bending to Washington’s demands. Others are pushing back, insisting they will not accept foreign nationals with criminal records.

Earlier this month, Dominica’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, told a press conference that his country had reached an agreement with the U.S. to accept a small number of deportees.

Dominica is not alone. Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia, and Saint Kitts and Nevis have all confirmed that they, too, have signed arrangements with Washington. Guyana — whose economy is being transformed by an oil boom — has struck a more cautious note, saying it is still negotiating and would accept only “skilled” people.

That raises a central question: do Caribbean governments really get to choose who the United States wants to send out?

“Small states can sign or refuse on paper, but Washington has tools that can quickly raise the cost of refusal,” says Irina Tsukerman, president of Scarab Rising, Inc, a New York City-based human rights and national security lawyer. “When visa access, travel permissions and reputation with banks and compliance bodies are on the line, the bargaining space narrows.”

That narrowing has apparently been felt in Antigua and Barbuda and in Dominica. The White House began applying pressure months ago, imposing travel restrictions and citing concerns over the islands’ citizenship-by-investment programs. Later, the U.S. State Department announced that citizens of Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica would have to post a bond of up to $15,000 when applying for a U.S. visa.

The leverage worked. For economies dependent on tourism and remittances, even a partial U.S. travel ban can be deeply damaging. Skerrit sought to reassure a nervous public.

“There have been careful deliberations of the need to avoid receiving violent individuals or individuals who will compromise the security of Dominica,” he told reporters, though he did not say whether Washington had agreed to such limits.

Dominica’s government later said, according to Fox News, that U.S. officials had assured it that Dominican citizens with valid American visas — including business, tourist and student visas — would continue to “travel to the U.S. and its territories as is customary.”

That assurance, however, stopped short of any formal commitment from Washington to roll back the partial travel restrictions imposed on the island.

At home, the political fallout has been swift. Opposition parties are furious, warning that their country risks becoming a dumping ground for U.S. deportees. Thomson Fontaine, leader of the main opposition party, told the Associated Press that the prime minister had yet to explain what he had actually agreed to.

“We don’t know how many of them are coming here, where will they be housed, how will they be taken care of.”

The concern is practical as much as political. Nearly nine years after Hurricane Maria devastated Dominica, Fontaine noted, housing shortages remain acute.

Not First Instance

This is not America’s first attempt to offload migrants onto willing neighbours. During his first term, President Trump deported hundreds of undocumented migrants to Latin American countries, including Guatemala and Mexico — though only where receiving governments agreed. In October last year, The Miami Herald reported that hundreds of Cubans and other migrants with serious criminal records were bused across the border into Mexico by the Trump administration.

Tsukerman argues that Caribbean states — especially those running citizenship-by-investment schemes — have limited room to refuse. Accepting deportees, she warns, risks aggravating already fragile housing markets.

“If numbers are low, the economic impact can be modest. If numbers rise or the cases are complex, costs can balloon quickly.”

How many people might be sent remains unclear. What is clear is the scale of the pressure on America’s asylum system. In fiscal year 2025 alone, 831,000 migrants filed asylum claims. By the end of that year, more than 2.4 million applications were still pending in immigration courts.

The White House has wrapped up similar arrangements with Paraguay and Belize. In Paraguay there has been little resistance. In Belize, by contrast, opposition parties are accusing the government of turning the country into yet another dumping ground for America’s unwanted migrants.