Dominica

In early January 2026, the Commonwealth of Dominica entered into a third-country agreement with the United States, under which Dominica agreed to accept certain individuals removed from the United States. Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit confirmed the agreement at a press conference, stating that Dominica and the United States had signed “an agreement to facilitate third-country refugees to be sent to Dominica.”

Despite this public recognition of the agreement in a press release, the agreement itself has not been released, and many of its terms remain unclear. Dominican officials have not disclosed how many people the country is willing to accept, over what period of time, or the eligible nationalities. Detailed operating procedures are in the final stages of drafting, and are expected to specify any support the United States will offer to Dominica as part of the agreement. Although no numerical cap has been publicly specified, Prime Minister Skerrit emphasized that Dominica’s small population of approximately 66,000 people, and its limited economic and administrative resources mean the country would not be able to receive large groups of asylum seekers.

Importantly, Dominica is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, but it lacks a domestic legal framework for refugee status determination. The country has not established formal asylum procedures, leaving individuals seeking protection without statutory safeguards. Asylum seekers without legal status are not authorized to work and have only limited access to services, including primary education and emergency healthcare.

Dominica has also not acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, and it has no legislation to identify or protect stateless persons, creating significant barriers to accessing basic services and legal protection. These legal and procedural gaps undermine the effective protection of refugees and stateless persons in Dominica and leave both populations vulnerable to rights violations.

The announcement provoked skepticism and concern within Dominica. Opposition figures and civil society actors criticized the lack of transparency and the absence of public consultation prior to the deal’s announcement. The leader of a rising opposition party, questioned how third country nationals would earn a livelihood in a country already facing high levels of unemployment, and where they would live, given existing housing shortages.

The agreement was announced during a period of heightened political tension in the Caribbean over recent U.S. government actions, including lethal strikes on migrant boats and a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. It came shortly after a U.S. presidential proclamation that, as of January 1, 2026,  suspended the entry to the United States of nationals of Dominica on immigrant and several other visas. In the proclamation, which also suspended select visa issuance for nationals from 14 other countries, the Trump administration explicitly cited citizenship-by-investment programs – such as the one run by Dominica – as being “susceptible to several risks,” including allowing individuals from travel banned countries to buy passports from Dominica and travel to the United States. Through this program, foreign nationals can acquire Dominican citizenship in exchange for qualifying investments, typically ranging from $200,000 to $250,000. Across the Caribbean, such programs have become a multibillion-dollar industry and a major source of government revenue, funding projects including hospitals, schools, infrastructure development, and climate resilience initiatives. At the same time, these programs have drawn criticism over risks related to transparency, corruption, money laundering, and the facilitation of illicit financial flows, as well as their contribution to local inflation and housing shortages. In 2023, a transnational investigation led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project found that Dominica had sold citizenship to thousands of individuals, including a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud, Saddam Hussein’s former top nuclear scientist, and a former Afghan intelligence chief.