(ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA) — Antigua and Barbuda has refused to accept a standing U.S. deportee transfer program for people who are not its citizens and has tied any limited cooperation to the lifting of U.S. visa restrictions on its nationals, according to a government White Paper.

The paper sets out a narrow counter-proposal in talks with Washington over the possible transfer of “third-country nationals,” people removed from the United States who are not nationals of Antigua and Barbuda. It says any acceptance must happen case by case, with the government keeping full discretion to approve or reject each person.

Officials also proposed a ceiling of 10 people in 2026, followed by a review in 2027. No one should leave the United States for Antigua and Barbuda unless funding for reception, settlement, healthcare, welfare, security, administration, and onward or return arrangements has already been secured in writing, the paper says.

The position stops short of a full refusal. Antigua and Barbuda says it values its relationship with the United States and is willing to consider a limited arrangement, but argues that a small island state cannot take on open-ended obligations for people who are not its nationals.

At the center of the paper is a demand for reciprocity. The government says full funding, vetting, legal status, and return responsibility are minimum protections, not a benefit in themselves, and that any agreement must produce a written national-interest gain for Antigua and Barbuda.

That benefit, the paper says, “should include” lifting blanket U.S. visa restrictions on Antigua and Barbuda nationals, while still allowing the United States to refuse visas to individuals who are personally ineligible. In effect, the government has linked cooperation on deportations to how Antiguan and Barbudan citizens are treated in the U.S. visa system.

The U.S. Department of State says visa issuance for nationals of 19 countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, was partially suspended from January 1, 2026. The suspension covers B-1/B-2 visitor visas, F, M and J student and exchange visitor visas, and immigrant visas, subject to limited exceptions.

Under the underlying U.S. proclamation, Antigua and Barbuda falls in the partial suspension category. The proclamation cites the country’s history of citizenship-by-investment without residency and suspends entry for Antigua and Barbuda nationals as immigrants and as nonimmigrants on B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M and J visas, with exceptions and case-by-case waivers.

Antigua and Barbuda nationals also face the U.S. visa bond program. The State Department says affected B-1/B-2 applicants who are otherwise eligible may have to post a bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, with the amount decided at the visa interview, and the country has been listed under that program from January 21, 2026.

Those measures have turned visa policy into a bargaining point in the deportee transfer talks. Antigua and Barbuda’s paper argues that accepting third-country nationals as part of another state’s migration policy is legally and politically different from receiving its own deported citizens.

Legal status sits near the center of that argument. The White Paper says a person transferred to Antigua and Barbuda without clear travel documents may not fit neatly into existing domestic immigration categories.

Antigua and Barbuda has no standalone Refugees Act, and asylum-related matters are handled through the general immigration framework and cooperation with international protection bodies. The paper says a transferred person could raise asylum, refugee, statelessness, or non-refoulement claims, creating legal and financial obligations beyond the original transfer arrangement.

The government’s position is that those obligations cannot be left to Antigua and Barbuda without written guarantees from the United States. It wants any agreement to spell out legal responsibility, finance, security, and sovereignty before any transfer takes place.

The counter-proposal also narrows the pool of people who could even be considered. Only people with final removal orders would qualify for review under Antigua and Barbuda’s terms.

Several groups would be excluded outright: people subject only to expedited removal, unaccompanied minors, people with pending asylum or protection claims in the United States, and people with criminal records beyond immigration-law violations. That approach would keep Antigua and Barbuda from receiving cases with unresolved protection issues or broader criminal concerns.

The paper treats expedited removal as a particular risk because it can happen quickly and may not give people the same chance to raise protection claims. Antigua and Barbuda is trying to avoid taking in people whose legal exposure in the United States may still be unresolved when the transfer takes place.

Parliament is due to debate the White Paper during a special session in the week of July 13. Until lawmakers decide otherwise, the government says there will be no standing monthly transfer program, no automatic acceptance, no unfunded arrivals, and no arrangement without written terms.

Those written terms, as set out in the paper, must protect sovereignty, legal responsibility, finance, security, and reciprocal benefit. The government is not accepting an open-ended deportee transfer program and is instead offering a limited framework that it can control person by person.

The dispute also fits into a wider U.S. effort to secure third-country arrangements for people who cannot easily be returned to their home countries. For Caribbean states, such proposals can shift questions of screening, housing, healthcare, legal status, and onward removal onto governments with far smaller administrative systems.

Antigua and Barbuda’s answer is that any such burden must come with money, legal certainty, and a tangible diplomatic return. In this case, that return is explicit: the government wants U.S. visa restrictions on Antigua and Barbuda lifted before any limited deal on third-country deportees moves ahead.

The White Paper leaves the government room to cooperate with Washington, but only on tightly written terms and only in a small number of cases. Its proposed cap of 10 people in 2026, with a review in 2027, shows how narrow that opening is.

It also answers a point that has circulated around the talks: Antigua and Barbuda says it is under no obligation to accept these deportees. The people covered by the proposal are not Antiguan or Barbudan citizens, but third-country nationals whom the United States wants to remove elsewhere.

That distinction runs through the entire document. Accepting its own nationals after deportation is one matter; taking other countries’ nationals under a U.S. deportee transfer program is another, and Antigua and Barbuda says it will decide any such request on its own terms.