LETTER: In search of a Better passport

Editor,

My New Year’s resolution for 2026 is to get a new passport—by new, I mean different. I was born in Dominica and, while I now live in Antigua and Barbuda, I am not an Antiguan citizen, at least not yet.

I grew up valuing my Dominican passport. While Dominica is not the biggest or most powerful country in the world, our passport held currency.

I recall visiting my uncles in London every year during Christmas and returning home two weeks later. My aunts in Canada were always happy to welcome us for special occasions, and weekend visits to Miami were among my most memorable experiences. Last year, I made it a point of duty to find the money and visit countries in Europe that I had always wanted to see, because the writing is on the wall—and it could not be clearer—for our visa-free entry into Europe.

Each time one of these countries imposed visa restrictions on us Dominicans, they flagged one issue: concerns over their national security owing to the management of Dominica’s citizenship by investment programme.

Over the last 25 years, Dominica’s CIP/CBI has been managed by the Dominica Labour Party, and for 23 of those years, the programme has been under the leadership of the longest-serving prime minister in the Caribbean, Roosevelt Skerrit (Dr. Dr.). Need I say more?

I need not say more, but I will. I have listened over the years—long before Canada became the first Western nation to impose visa restrictions on us—to concerns raised by patriotic Dominicans warning of the urgency for proper management and accountability of the programme.

Those patriotic Dominicans who warned that Dominica’s passports were in the hands of crooks and criminals were not thanked. In fact, Skerrit himself reversed the blame on them, alleging that these patriots were trying to destroy the programme. His supporters drank that like manicou soup, repeating it like our famed Jacco parrots.

While the warnings issued 5, 10, 15, and 20 years ago were being ignored, Dominica continued to rake in billions—yes, billions with a “B”—from the sale of Dominican passports. It is an open secret what happened to all that money, even as the opposition there petitions the courts for answers as to exactly where the money is.

The Roosevelt Skerrit administration will be looking to blame the opposition again when the EU, this year, imposes visas on us. Not even the hastily made changes to the CIP/CBI can save us now. Residency requirement or not, we are doomed.

Now, what visa-free access is left for Dominicans who have had historical ties with the U.K., U.S., and Canada? Well, it is not something Skerrit has to worry about. Is he still French? Does his wife have another passport? And his lovely kids—where were they born?

Where does the manager of Dominica’s CIP expect us to travel to outside the region? Do we go to Caracas? Shall we journey to Russia, or perhaps a vacation in China might be more affordable? Yes, while the Government of Dominica was present at every ALBA meeting singing the praises of Maduro—whom they very well know stole the elections—they sidelined our true friends.

I was surprised to learn that Dominicans need visas to go to Mexico, places like Chile, Uruguay, and even Guatemala. Very soon, only Antigua will accept us—thank you, Gaston! Antigua may have its own problems too, don’t get me wrong. However, Antigua still enjoys visa-free access to the U.K., to Canada in certain situations, and to more countries in Central and South America and Asia than Dominica.

You see why I want a new passport? I don’t know how i will get one but I certainly can’t afford to buy one. I know, though, that when the time comes, our Dominican passport will not stop us from accepting the plane and ferry tickets back to Dominica in droves to tell this near 3 decades-old government, F-OFF!

Disgusted Dominican.

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