Above: the Turks and Caicos House of Assembly

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Turks and Caicos Islands Government announced Thursday that it has lifted its moratorium on deportations to Haiti.

The ban had been enacted following Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, after which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged governments to suspend all involuntary returns to Haiti and grant interim protection on humanitarian grounds to those who had left Haiti.

The TCI had suspended deportation of those illegal Haitian migrants already in the country, except for those arriving by sloop.

United Kingdom ministers have been consulted on the decision, according to the Ministry of Border Control and Labour.

The UK “will continue to provide the TCIG with technical assistance to support more effective border control and enforcement,” the government said in a statement.

“The lifting of the moratorium on deportation [to Haiti] is part of the Ministry of Border Control and Labour’s commitment to enforce the law firmly, fairly and effectively,” said Clara Gardiner, permanent secretary in the Ministry.

“Through the development of our intelligence capability and establishment of a Joint Protocol with the police, we are focusing on those threats and individuals who seek to undermine the integrity of our borders such as sloop arrivals, facilitators and traffickers, whilst targeting those migrants involved in criminality or causing harm to our communities,” she said.

Turks and Caicos is about 200 miles north of Haiti’s northern coast.