Donald Trump's American Presidential Directive of 15 September, 2025 on the imposition of major U.S. visa restrictions on Antiguan and Dominican passport holders was crystal clear: it's all about the flaws, defects, loopholes and systemic corruption in their respective Citizenship by Investment (CBI/CIP) economic passport programs. Objectively, this is not in dispute; nor is the validity of the serious American National Security concerns that resulted from the passports issued pursuant to those rogue programs.
Unless and until both EC CBI states undertake a complete and total revision and reform of every aspect of their economic citizenship programs, the United States will rightly, continue to administer and strictly enforce the visa restrictions, including requiring the Draconian bond in those rare cases where
it actually grants a visa. Getting a visa in Antigua is a tough slog; I am aware of a single case, where a special university scholarship applicant actually had to secure the support of a United States Senator to get her application granted.
Although I have zero confidence that, under the present Labour governments in office in both Antigua and Dominica, that their Prime Ministers will ever concede that their rogue programs need a complete overhaul, I present here what they must do to insure that the United States will restore the normal visa privileges that it has so effectively revoked.
(1) The CBI programs must be physically operated from abroad, either from North America, or Europe, where Banking Best Practices, in both due diligence investigations, as well as verification of Source of Funds and Source of Wealth, as well as effective Customer Identification Procedures (CIP), are observed, without exception. Both countries' programs have far too long a dark history of money laundering, fraud and corruption to be ever trusted again. The lure of easy money, to any nation with a dysfunctional, marginal economy that only relies on tourism to survive, is just too powerful for West Indians to resist.
(2) Effective supervision and enforceable regulation of the companies selling passports in the world's Investment Migration industry, whose members have no professional oversight, must be conducted from outside the Caribbean, by whatever onshore agency is operating the CBI programs detailed above.
(3) A comprehensive White Paper, containing a Blueprint of how the CBI laws and regulations of Antigua and Dominica are to be modified and corrected to meet these new requirements, must be drafted and delivered to Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State for his agency's review and feedback, to be coordinated with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
Otherwise, the visa restrictions will continue for the forseeable future. Choose well, Antiguans and Dominicans.
