‘Give us a hearing’

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

As the Gov­ern­ment moves to reg­u­larise un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants through a new reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise, ac­tivists are call­ing for ur­gent di­a­logue and clar­i­ty amid fears with­in the Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty that com­ing for­ward could lead to de­por­ta­tion.

Ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­lez wel­comed the de­ci­sion to re­open reg­is­tra­tion but warned that mis­takes from the trou­bled 2019 Venezue­lan Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Process must not be re­peat­ed. She said her or­gan­i­sa­tion was seek­ing a meet­ing with Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials to ad­dress con­cerns.

“We need to dis­cuss it to clar­i­fy things for the Venezue­lans about the process, be­cause there are a lot of con­cerns and a lot of fear that a lot of the Venezue­lans are afraid to reg­is­ter. They have a lot of dif­fer­ent mat­ters as they talk about how all im­mi­grants are il­le­gal,” Gon­za­lez said.

The Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants must pay $700 to reg­is­ter un­der the new pro­gramme from Jan­u­ary 30, a move Alexan­der said was aimed at ac­count­abil­i­ty and pos­i­tive in­te­gra­tion. The ex­er­cise is ex­pect­ed to cov­er more than 44,000 Venezue­lans and will is­sue iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards valid un­til De­cem­ber 31.

Chil­dren will be ex­empt, while adults must com­plete an on­line ap­pli­ca­tion and at­tend an in-per­son in­ter­view at des­ig­nat­ed sta­di­ums na­tion­wide. Ap­pli­cants must pro­vide iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, proof of ad­dress, and em­ploy­ment de­tails. Those who fail to reg­is­ter risk de­por­ta­tion. The Gov­ern­ment has es­ti­mat­ed the cost of the ex­er­cise at $1 mil­lion, sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than the 2019 dri­ve, which cost $5 mil­lion. Full par­tic­i­pa­tion in this year’s dri­ve could gen­er­ate more than $30.8 mil­lion in fees.

Gon­za­lez chal­lenged the premise of the pol­i­cy, ar­gu­ing that many Venezue­lans fled po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion and en­tered T&T seek­ing asy­lum rather than as il­le­gal mi­grants. She ques­tioned how in­di­vid­u­als al­ready be­fore the courts for il­le­gal en­try could mean­ing­ful­ly par­tic­i­pate.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of the Venezue­lan mi­grants are scared be­cause they have de­por­ta­tion or­ders,” she said.

She al­so de­scribed the $700 fee as puni­tive and po­ten­tial­ly un­law­ful. “Is it right to charge them $700 and those who can­not even blink their eyes to get that mon­ey?”

In­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions sup­port these con­cerns. The In­ter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion on the Pro­tec­tion of the Rights of All Mi­grant Work­ers and Mem­bers of Their Fam­i­lies af­firms mi­grants’ ac­cess to ba­sic rights, while guid­ance from the UN Hu­man Rights Of­fice warns that reg­is­tra­tion costs must not ex­clude vul­ner­a­ble groups from le­gal pro­tec­tion.

Hu­man rights at­tor­ney Criston Williams said im­pos­ing the fee on refugees or asy­lum seek­ers could breach the UN refugee con­ven­tion, while ap­ply­ing it to eco­nom­ic mi­grants would be a mat­ter of pol­i­cy.

“For me to com­ment fur­ther on whether the pol­i­cy is right or wrong, that pol­i­cy with re­spect to any mi­grant frame­work in Trinidad and To­ba­go should be dis­closed and dis­cussed with stake­hold­ers so we can con­tribute and have a prop­er dis­course,” Williams said.

He added that the clo­sure of the UN­HCR of­fice (an agency of the Unit­ed Na­tions set up in 1951 to aid, pro­tect, and mon­i­tor refugees) in 2025 and the lack of a clear mi­grant pol­i­cy have height­ened fear among refugee com­mu­ni­ties.

How­ev­er, La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group co­or­di­na­tor Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine said the fee it­self was un­like­ly to de­ter most un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants from reg­is­ter­ing.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Ram­nar­ine said many mi­grants who have lived and worked in T&T for years may view the fee as ac­cept­able.

“Es­pe­cial­ly those who have been very un­com­fort­able with their lack of sta­tus in the years gone by. I think many of them are, at least those I have spo­ken to, who do not see it as a prob­lem, and if they are hav­ing it hard, when they have been faith­ful em­ploy­ees, I can see em­ploy­ers be­ing will­ing to help,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She ac­knowl­edged that mis­trust per­sists, fu­elled by re­ports of mi­grants al­leged­ly de­port­ed af­ter ap­proach­ing au­thor­i­ties. She said con­fi­dence re­mains frag­ile de­spite Gov­ern­ment as­sur­ances and not­ed that some em­ploy­ers may ab­sorb the reg­is­tra­tion cost for trust­ed work­ers.

Ram­nar­ine raised con­cerns about im­ple­men­ta­tion, re­call­ing long lines and lo­gis­ti­cal fail­ures dur­ing the 2019 ex­er­cise. She ques­tioned whether fa­cil­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly in south Trinidad, can ac­com­mo­date large vol­umes of ap­pli­cants and whether an ap­point­ment sys­tem will be used to pre­vent con­ges­tion.

“I fore­see some prob­lems there, es­pe­cial­ly for peo­ple from the deep South hav­ing to take taxis to go. That is okay, but you do not want to take the taxis and go and then be told that you can­not be processed that day be­cause there are too many peo­ple. If the reg­is­tra­tion is on­line, then per­fect, but when you reach the in­ter­view stage, that is go­ing to take a while, and how are you rolling out that seg­ment?”

She al­so high­light­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty chal­lenges, not­ing that many mi­grants lack re­li­able in­ter­net ac­cess or clear in­for­ma­tion about the process. Com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions, she said, will like­ly play a cru­cial role in guid­ing mi­grants through reg­is­tra­tion.