Dominica signed third-country deportee agreement with United States after visa threat

On January 5, 2026, Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit announced at a news conference that his government had entered into an agreement with the United States — formalized through diplomatic notes dated December 17, 2025 — to facilitate the transfer of third-country nationals to the island, addressing cases where the U.S. "is unable to return these individuals to their country of birth or origin." Skerrit said the deal followed careful negotiation with the State Department to exclude "violent individuals or individuals who would compromise the security of Dominica," but when pressed on which countries the transferred people would come from, he said only that "there are details" he could not yet share publicly.

The announcement came weeks after a December 16, 2025 U.S. presidential proclamation imposed partial entry restrictions on Dominican nationals effective January 1, 2026 — timing that fueled speculation the visa measure was used as leverage to secure Dominica's cooperation, a pattern that also unfolded with Antigua and Barbuda in the same window. The first deportation flight under the arrangement arrived in Dominica on July 22, 2026.