Dominican authorities are pinning their hopes on the U.S. lifting partial visa restrictions on its nationals at an upcoming June review session, according to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.

The State Department in late December slapped restrictions on non-immigrant or tourist visas as a safety measure to allegedly protect Americans from terrorist attacks and other national security and public safety threats.”

The department also cited American discomfort with the Eastern Caribbean’s system of selling passports and citizenship to foreigners who can pay the minimum $100,000 fee, invest in a local development program, and pass background checks that the U.S. and other Western nations deem inadequate.  The fear is linked to these passport owners, some of dubious background, who use local passports to enter dozens of countries with waived visa requirements for locals.

Similar restrictions were also slapped on Antiguans.

The United Kingdom has already restored visa requirements for some Caribbean nations, blaming rising numbers of overstays and phony asylum claims.

Speaking to reporters in the past week, Prime Minister Skerrit said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had indicated that a mid-year review will be undertaken. Rubio met with Caribbean leaders at their summit in St. Kitts in late February, where that and other pressing issues were raised.

“He made it clear to us this was a temporary measure and that they were doing internal reviews and so on. And he was pressed for a time frame, and he intimated that he didn’t want to hold on to that, but that there will be a review sometime in June of this year of the actions taken under the proclamation. I can also tell you that every week, our ambassador to the United States meets with the State Department on our bilateral and multilateral issues. And I receive reports of this from the ambassador every week. And of course, central to this is the visa restrictions by the United States of America,” he said.

Dominica, St. Kitts, Antigua, Grenada, and St. Lucia offer Citizenship-by-Investment Programs (CIPs), which governments say now account for major development revenues as regional free trade taxes and sugar and banana exports to the EU have waned.

Skerrit said he is confident that Dominica has already addressed whatever security and other concerns the U.S. might have. “As you know, we are a country that respects international law. We respect the rights of any country to take whatever action they need to protect their borders and security, and to implement whatever policy in legislation they deem necessary to improve their economy and way of life. We respect that.” The cabinet expects that the June review will be positive for Dominicans so that we can go back to the original days, which we all enjoyed.”