Michael Freeland, MP for St. George and Minister of State within the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Transportation and Investment speaks at Parliament meeting (photo by Robert Andre Emmanuel)
Minister of State within the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Transportation and Investment Michael Freeland pushed back against Barbuda MP Trevor Walker’s complaints over notice on the government’s resolution on third-country nationals, telling the House of Representatives that the underlying issue has been public for months and that no other country has placed similar deportee terms before its Parliament.
Freeland said Walker’s objection that he received the resolution and its attachment only over the weekend and the night before the sitting did not hold up against the public record.
“This has been an issue that has been in the public for several months now. It’s not a new issue,” Freeland said, noting that Prime Minister Gaston Browne had already referenced the memorandum of understanding signed with Washington in a public remark on January 5, 2026, and that the government’s white paper on the matter had been made public through the Prime Minister’s Office on July 2.
The minister said the resolution itself reflects an unprecedented level of transparency.
“There has been no other country who has had this issue debated in their parliament. None,” he said, framing the government’s decision to bring the matter before the House as proof of its openness rather than a weakness in its position.
Freeland described the white paper’s contents as non-binding proposals rather than a concluded agreement, pointing to the pace of the exchange with Washington as evidence Antigua and Barbuda retained room to negotiate.
“The fact that we can have a discussion with the United States where they have made a proposal back in May, three days later we come back and say, listen, this is a counterproposal… indicates that we have cards,” he said. “If we didn’t have any cards, guess what would have happened? The U.S. would have just said, listen, we’re sending these people on the plane tomorrow and take them.”
He said the government had laid out specific conditions under which it would accept third-country nationals rather than simply declining the US request outright, citing smaller intakes accepted by other Caribbean states as context.
Closing his contribution, Freeland challenged the opposition to offer an alternative rather than oppose the resolution outright.
“If it is that the members of the opposition could add value to a document like this, then that is what an opposition is supposed to do, not to oppose for opposing’s sake,” he said, adding that the government was prepared to compromise with Washington while maintaining that the resolution “speaks volumes as to how we care for the people of Antigua and Barbuda.”
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