Myrie's handling was standard, says witness

The immigration officer who interviewed Shanique Myrie when the Jamaican woman came to Barbados in 2011 became suspicious because the visitor was travelling there for the first time, and had also met the person who planned to host her on the Internet.

This was revealed to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) yesterday by Grade 3 Immigration Officer Alicia Young on the second day of testimony in Myrie's discrimination suit against the Barbados government.

According to Young, those two particulars were the reasons she referred Myrie to her superior officer after processing her a little over two years ago.

Young, from Branchbury, St Joseph, told the sitting in the No. 1 Supreme Court that immigration officers had been instructed to refer passengers who had contacted their hosts on the Internet to supervisors. "It (passengers coming to Barbados who have met their hosts online) happens very frequently now," Young told the court in response to a question from Myrie's attorney, Nancy Anderson, yesterday.

It was Young who was on the 3-10 p.m. shift on March 14, 2011 at Grantley Adams International when the 25-year-old Myrie disembarked from a Caribbean Airlines flight just after 4 p.m.

First visit

Young said Myrie had US$300 in her possession, and a return ticket for 15 days later. The immigration officer said her computer indicated Myrie was entering Barbados for the first time, and all such information was placed on the woman's immigration form before Myrie was referred to her boss, Merlo Reid.

Also under cross-examination by Anderson, Young revealed she could interview and process passengers, but could not deny anyone entry into Barbados. "I can only refer persons to my supervisor after I interview them," she told the court yesterday.

Also giving evidence yesterday was Pamela Clarke, who was called on her mobile by police and airport authorities on March 14, 2011, because her name was on Myrie's immigration form as the person she would be staying with in Barbados.

But Clarke, of Hillaby St Andrew, denied that she knew Myrie, had ever met the Jamaican woman, and had ever spoken to her in a telephone conversation.

"I do not know Shanique Myrie," Clarke told the CCJ. "I did not talk to her on the phone. I have never talked to her on the phone."

According to Clarke, she had made an arrangement with her friend and neighbour Daniel Forde three years ago, allowing him to give a friend her name and mobile number.

Clarke said she had known Forde, a senior environmental officer in the Ministry of Health, for a number of years and trusted him, so she had no problem letting him pass on her information for a friend who was coming to Barbados from Jamaica.

- Contributed by The Nation Barbados