Keeping us safe?: Homeland Security gives 300 Montserratians the boot

[KamaAina]

Montserrat is the Caribbean island that has had a series of volcanic eruptions rendering two-thirds of the island uninhabitable. As it is a British possession, most refugees went to the UK, but about 300 ended up in the country with the statue that says "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"... (you know the one) -- and this is what they get:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/09/nyregion/09volcano.html (registration)

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2004/07/07/immigration.htm

Now, in a startling twist that reflects a major change in immigration politics, the Department of Homeland Security is ordering the 292 Montserratians to leave by the end of February - not because it is safe to go home again, but because it is not going to be safe anytime soon.

"The volcanic activity causing the environmental disaster in Montserrat is not likely to cease in the foreseeable future," Homeland Security officials explained in a June 25 notice ending Montserratians' temporary protected status effective Feb. 27, 2005. "Therefore it no longer constitutes a temporary disruption of living conditions that temporarily prevents Montserrat from adequately handling the return of its nationals."...

Montserrat is one of Britain's last overseas territories, many of its people descendants of the African slaves and Irish penal deportees sent to toil there 400 years ago. Citing scientific estimates that dangerous volcanic activity is likely for at least 20 years, and for perhaps as long as a couple of centuries, the Homeland Security notice advises those who choose not to return to the devastated island to consider exercising their claim to British citizenship and relocating to the motherland.

The notice also took the British government by surprise. At the British Consulate in New York and the United Kingdom government office on Montserrat last week, press officers said they were not prepared to answer questions about the prospects of British residency for Montserratians like Mrs. Ryner; her son Craig Ryner, 35, now a New York subway station agent raising three Brooklyn-born children; or her divorced daughter, Pearl Ryner, 39, a teacher turned medical technologist. British officials are asking the United States government for more information, press officers said.

I mean, c'mon, it's not like Bush*co has to worry about the Montserratian-American swing vote, now, is it? Besides, you just know that place is probably crawling with terra-ists (it even has its own color-coded alert system, for the volcanic eruptions!) </sarcasm>

Once again the Bush* machine reveals a little bit of what it truly is all about, and believe me, folks, it ain't pretty.

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. This move really pisses me off....

I have visited Montserrat a number of times (not recently, sadly) and it hurts to see a very special way of life destroyed by Galway Soufriere. These kind, gentle people the gummint is trying to deport are in no way a threat to this country. If Montserrat was still whole and *, Crashcart and Asskkkrack were there and needed help, no one would close their doors to these evil "leaders" of ours.