Immigrants urged to register or risk immediate deportation

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

From next Fri­day, un­doc­u­ment­ed im­mi­grants will be able to start the process of reg­is­ter­ing to work legal­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Adult ap­pli­cants will be re­quired to pay $700, and those who fail to reg­is­ter will face im­me­di­ate de­por­ta­tion.

The de­ci­sion was made by Cab­i­net yes­ter­day and an­nounced by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der at the post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing.

Alexan­der ex­plained that the process will be “three-fold.”

“The first step is reg­is­ter­ing on­line at mi­grantreg­is­tra­tion.gov.tt. Af­ter that, you will be called for an in-per­son reg­is­tra­tion in­ter­view, and even­tu­al­ly, you will re­ceive your Mi­gra­tion Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work card. This project is be­ing con­duct­ed un­der the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of De­fence,” he said.

In-per­son reg­is­tra­tion is ex­pect­ed to be­gin af­ter Car­ni­val (Feb­ru­ary 16–17), and the reg­is­tra­tion card will be valid un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2026.

Alexan­der said the ini­tia­tive will sup­port law en­force­ment ef­forts while al­low­ing im­mi­grants to work legal­ly.

“We took this ini­tia­tive be­cause many per­sons in and around Trinidad and To­ba­go are in­volved in crime and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, and we want to know who lives where. This way, we can ma­noeu­vre more ef­fec­tive­ly dur­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions,” he said.

The min­is­ter stressed that, un­like the 2019 reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion, this reg­is­tra­tion is open to all na­tion­al­i­ties and will col­lect more com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion.

“The last ex­er­cise lacked ac­count­abil­i­ty, in­tel­li­gence and strat­e­gy. Many peo­ple were reg­is­tered un­der fic­ti­tious names, ad­dress­es, and ori­gins. This Gov­ern­ment in­tends to do things dif­fer­ent­ly,” Alexan­der said.

He added, “It will in­cor­po­rate in­tel­li­gence, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and most of all, we will un­der­stand from every an­gle who we are deal­ing with be­cause of the strate­gies we in­tend to put in place.”

When asked how the Gov­ern­ment ar­rived at a $700 fee, Min­is­ter Alexan­der said the cost cov­ers the reg­is­tra­tion process, card pro­duc­tion, and re­lat­ed ex­pens­es.

“We tried to ease it com­pared to the last ex­er­cise, but these things are not free. This process will cost a frac­tion of what the 2019 ini­tia­tive cost,” he said.

He ex­plained that the pre­vi­ous reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise cost $5 mil­lion, while the cur­rent one is pro­ject­ed at $1 mil­lion, large­ly due to the use of gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties.

Those fa­cil­i­ties will in­clude Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Ari­ma, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Port-of-Spain, and Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in To­ba­go.

“So, we have a large area pre­pared be­cause we are un­sure ex­act­ly how many mi­grants will come to reg­is­ter,” Alexan­der said.

While urg­ing every­one to come for­ward and reg­is­ter, the min­is­ter warned that those who fail to do so will face the full force of the law.

“It is im­por­tant to note that af­ter reg­is­tra­tion, any­one caught not reg­is­ter­ing will face in­stant de­por­ta­tion. The on­line process starts next Fri­day, and in-per­son reg­is­tra­tion will be­gin af­ter Car­ni­val,” he said.

Alexan­der al­so out­lined the re­quired doc­u­men­ta­tion, which in­cludes birth records, pass­port de­tails, na­tion­al ID (coun­try of ori­gin), par­ents’ in­for­ma­tion, spouse de­tails, ed­u­ca­tion his­to­ry, em­ploy­ment his­to­ry, vac­ci­na­tion records, and trav­el de­tails for T&T.

When asked whether ap­pli­cants with­out all re­quired doc­u­ments would be barred, Alexan­der said, “No. We will still try to ver­i­fy the in­for­ma­tion. We don’t want peo­ple to be afraid to come for­ward be­cause they en­tered through un­of­fi­cial chan­nels. We want them to be reg­is­tered.”

How­ev­er, he main­tained that a na­tion­al ID is non-ne­go­tiable.

“Where in Trinidad and To­ba­go can you work with­out ID? Em­ploy­ers need to know who you are. Near­ly all for­eign na­tion­als have an ID. Dur­ing our reg­is­tra­tion at the de­ten­tion cen­tre, every­one had one,” he said.