Migrant activists cry foul as Venezuelans trying to register get deportation orders

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Venezue­lan ad­vo­cates say near­ly 20 Venezue­lan mi­grants have been is­sued de­por­ta­tion or­ders for il­le­gal en­try since De­cem­ber, af­ter ap­proach­ing Im­mi­gra­tion of­fices for in­for­ma­tion on the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion pro­gramme.

The de­por­ta­tion or­ders have trig­gered anx­i­ety and fear among mi­grants sur­round­ing the reg­is­tra­tion process, which is set to be­gin from Mon­day at Cou­va from 4 pm.

Venezue­lan ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­les yes­ter­day said al­though as­sur­ances were giv­en in De­cem­ber that an ex­pand­ed mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion frame­work would soon be rolled out, there is still lit­tle clar­i­ty on how the sys­tem will work. With Jan­u­ary al­ready un­der­way, she said guid­ance on reg­is­tra­tion venues, time­lines and re­quired doc­u­ments re­mains lim­it­ed.

Ex­press­ing out­rage, Gon­za­les said at least 16 mi­grants re­ceived de­por­ta­tion or­ders af­ter vis­it­ing the Port-of-Spain Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fice be­tween De­cem­ber and Jan­u­ary to seek in­for­ma­tion.

“They were treat­ed bad­ly. They were told to come back, and when they did, they were giv­en de­por­ta­tion or­ders,” Gon­za­les claimed.

She said the mixed mes­sag­ing has left mi­grants anx­ious and afraid.

“The Prime Min­is­ter said come and reg­is­ter, but now peo­ple are wor­ried. The com­mu­ni­ca­tion is very con­fus­ing. They don’t know what they are go­ing to get,” she said.

Gon­za­les said mi­grants are al­so strug­gling to ob­tain re­quired doc­u­ments, such as po­lice cer­tifi­cates of char­ac­ter.

“They are told they are il­le­gal and re­fused. These are not crim­i­nals. They are hard­work­ing peo­ple and all they want is to reg­is­ter,” she said.

Sim­i­lar con­cerns were raised by the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group co­or­di­na­tor Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, who said her or­gan­i­sa­tion has al­so been con­tact­ed by mi­grants who went to Im­mi­gra­tion of­fices seek­ing in­for­ma­tion, on­ly to leave with de­por­ta­tion let­ters.

“I heard of about three or four cas­es, but I imag­ine there are many more. Mi­grants are very anx­ious, and this lack of in­for­ma­tion is ex­treme­ly wor­ri­some,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She ex­plained that many mi­grants were try­ing to pre­pare in ad­vance by gath­er­ing doc­u­ments, but were en­coun­ter­ing ob­sta­cles even be­fore reg­is­tra­tion for­mal­ly be­gins.

“Some­thing as sim­ple as get­ting a cer­tifi­cate of char­ac­ter has be­come a prob­lem. Some po­lice sta­tions are telling them they can­not get one, even though they were able to ob­tain these doc­u­ments in the past,” she said.

Ram­nar­ine said there has been no of­fi­cial guid­ance from the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty out­lin­ing reg­is­tra­tion re­quire­ments or clear in­struc­tions on how mi­grants should pro­ceed.

“They need to pub­lish a list of re­quire­ments and make peo­ple feel safe and com­fort­able com­ing for­ward to reg­is­ter,” she said.

She al­so warned that poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion could re­peat mis­takes made dur­ing the 2019 mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise, when many Venezue­lans stayed away due to fear and mis­trust.

“At that time, many mi­grants feared their per­son­al in­for­ma­tion would be shared with Venezuela and that they would be per­se­cut­ed fur­ther. As a re­sult, not every­one came for­ward,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She stressed that clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion, ad­vance no­tice of venues and as­sur­ances about how per­son­al da­ta will be used are crit­i­cal to en­sur­ing a smoother and more in­clu­sive process. She al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­gage di­rect­ly with mi­grant ad­vo­ca­cy groups.

At­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, who rep­re­sents sev­er­al mi­grants who were is­sued de­por­ta­tion or­ders since Oc­to­ber, said she has al­so raised con­cerns with im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials about how the process is un­fold­ing.

While she de­scribed the reg­is­tra­tion ini­tia­tive as pos­i­tive in prin­ci­ple, Mo­hammed said its im­ple­men­ta­tion is caus­ing fear and con­fu­sion. She said she re­cent­ly met with a client who re­ceived a de­por­ta­tion let­ter af­ter vis­it­ing Im­mi­gra­tion and has heard sim­i­lar re­ports in­volv­ing fam­i­lies.

“I was al­so told that peo­ple with ba­bies and young chil­dren were giv­en de­por­ta­tion let­ters,” Mo­hammed said, adding im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties need to re­or­gan­ise their ap­proach to reg­is­tra­tion.

She em­pha­sised that many mi­grants fled Venezuela due to vi­o­lence and po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and asy­lum and refugee claims re­main un­re­solved.

“This needs to be ap­proached from a hu­man­i­tar­i­an per­spec­tive, not just a law en­force­ment one. The courts are clogged, the pris­ons are clogged, and the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre is clogged,” Mo­hammed said.

Mi­grant Maria Man­iza­les said the ini­tial an­nounce­ment of reg­is­tra­tion brought hope to the mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty, but that op­ti­mism has since fad­ed.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion was ex­cit­ed. We were very hap­py be­cause it meant sta­bil­i­ty, ac­cess to health care and ed­u­ca­tion for our chil­dren,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said the ab­sence of clear in­for­ma­tion has left many mi­grants feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble and un­cer­tain.

“We would like in­for­ma­tion from the Gov­ern­ment to de­cide what ex­act­ly is go­ing to hap­pen,” Man­iza­les said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Rosanne St Hill-Bil­louin de­clined com­ment, say­ing she is now al­lowed to speak un­der the Pub­lic Ser­vice reg­u­la­tions. Re­peat­ed at­tempts were al­so made to con­tact Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der.

A no­tice is­sued by the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go stat­ed that mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion will take place at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um from Mon­day, (Jan­u­ary 19) to Feb­ru­ary 6 be­tween 4 pm and 8 pm.

In an in­ter­view last De­cem­ber, Min­is­ter Alexan­der said the ex­pand­ed reg­is­tra­tion frame­work was in­tend­ed to dis­tin­guish be­tween mi­grants in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and those who are work­ing and con­tribut­ing to so­ci­ety.

“If you are a mi­grant who con­tributes to the well-be­ing of this na­tion, then we will con­sid­er you dif­fer­ent­ly, and we will not de­port you,” Alexan­der said.

He not­ed that the ini­tia­tive builds on the 2019 mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion pro­gramme, which re­sult­ed in more than 16,000 Venezue­lans be­ing reg­is­tered fol­low­ing a sharp in­flux linked to Venezuela’s po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

Un­der the ex­pand­ed frame­work, he said reg­is­tra­tion will be open to un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants of all na­tion­al­i­ties liv­ing in T&T, in­clud­ing Venezue­lans, and will al­so stop the ex­ploita­tion of mi­grant labour­ers.

Le­gal No­tice No. 470, the Im­mi­gra­tion (Ex­emp­tion from Work Per­mit) (Im­mi­grants) Or­der, 2025, al­lows reg­is­tered un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants to live and work legal­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go from Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2026.