Clarke queries Trump’s ban on Caribbean New Yorkers

WASHINGTON (CMC):

Caribbean American Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has joined her New York congressional colleague Kathleen Rice in leading a bipartisan letter to Acting US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf questioning the Donald J. Trump administration’s decision to implement a new policy banning New York state residents, including Caribbean nationals, from the Global Entry Programme and other Trusted Traveler Programmes.

The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency said that, effective immediately, residents of the state of New York will no longer be eligible to apply for or renew membership in its Trusted Traveler Programmes “due to state legislation that restricts CBP’s access to certain criminal history information maintained by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).”

In addition, CBP said the Vehicle Exports programme will be affected.

“Vehicles titled in New York may be de-prioritised for export, as resource limitations require, when supporting documents cannot be authenticated through information sharing with New York DMV,” CBP said in a statement.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York, and Rice, who represents New York’s 4th Congressional District, said that Wolf also made the announcement on cable television.

THOUSANDS TO BE IMPACTED

“You failed to provide any notice to our congressional delegation about your decision. Rather, we learned through reporting that a letter was sent to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles alerting them of this policy change, which will immediately impact roughly 50,000 to 80,000 New York state residents with applications pending and another 150,000 to 200,000 New York State residents per year, who are trying to renew membership,” Clarke and Rice said in their letter.

“This is of great concern and unacceptable to many of our constituents,” they added.

Clarke and Rice said that New York is the only state in the country that has been singled out for exclusion from “these critical programmes”.

“Accordingly, our offices have received an influx of questions and concerns from constituents who have pending Global Entry applications or renewals,” they wrote. “You have not provided sufficient guidance to our offices on how to handle these cases.”

For all of these reasons, Clarke and Rice asked that Wolf provide a briefing for their offices on this issue by Thursday.

CBP said the decision to ban New York state residents, including Caribbean nationals, from the Global Entry Programmes and other Trusted Traveler Programmes, comes as the State of New York implements the Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act, which, it claimed, prohibits CBP from accessing information maintained by the New York DMV.

“Without access to this information, CBP cannot properly complete security checks for Trusted Traveler Programme applications and renewals submitted by New York residents, greatly increasing our security risk,” the statement said.