Low turnout as migrant card distribution begins

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Few­er than 100 mi­grants turned up at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va yes­ter­day, as the dis­tri­b­u­tion of Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work (MRF) cards be­gan. How­ev­er, some ap­pli­cants faced dif­fi­cul­ties find­ing au­tho­rised pay­ment lo­ca­tions, while oth­ers strug­gled to get time off from work to col­lect their doc­u­ments.

The slow start to the ex­er­cise came de­spite 20,242 ap­pli­cants be­ing rec­om­mend­ed for reg­is­tra­tion fol­low­ing a se­cu­ri­ty vet­ting process, with el­i­gi­ble mi­grants re­quired to pay $710 be­fore re­ceiv­ing their cards and ac­com­pa­ny­ing Min­is­ter’s Per­mits.

Al­though the dis­tri­b­u­tion ex­er­cise be­gan yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has not in­di­cat­ed when it will end.

Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group, told Guardian Me­dia that some mi­grants were still try­ing to raise the mon­ey, check their ap­pli­ca­tion sta­tus and arrange time away from work to at­tend the col­lec­tion cen­tre.

She al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to give ap­pli­cants two weeks to col­lect their doc­u­ments as some ap­pli­cants might be un­able to at­tend im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause of work com­mit­ments.

Mean­while, the founder and Di­rec­tor of La Ca­sita His­pan­ic Cul­tur­al Cen­tre in Ari­ma, An­dreina Ven­tu­ra Brown, said some ap­pli­cants had en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties lo­cat­ing lot­to booths equipped to ac­cept the pay­ments.

“Peo­ple have hunt­ed and searched to see where they can make the pay­ments,” Brown said.

She ex­plained that not all NL­CB Lot­to booths were au­tho­rised or equipped with the nec­es­sary sys­tem to process the trans­ac­tions.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Guyanese na­tion­al Aki­ni Mussenden, 25, of El Do­ra­do, said he did not get his card when he ar­rived at the Cou­va sta­di­um. He said the reg­is­tra­tion card rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to se­cure for­mal em­ploy­ment af­ter liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go for 18 years.

Mussenden, who ar­rived in the coun­try when he was eight, said he want­ed to be able to work legal­ly and con­tribute to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem (NIS).

How­ev­er, af­ter spend­ing $65 on trans­porta­tion to reach the sta­di­um, he said he was un­able to com­plete the col­lec­tion process dur­ing his vis­it and was told to await an email be­fore re­turn­ing to col­lect.

He wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ob­tain le­gal sta­tus, say­ing it would make it eas­i­er for him to ac­cess em­ploy­ment.

The ex­er­cise fol­lows an ear­li­er reg­is­tra­tion ini­tia­tive in 2019, when the Gov­ern­ment reg­is­tered 16,523 Venezue­lan na­tion­als dur­ing a two-week ex­er­cise be­tween May 31 and June 14. Those who passed se­cu­ri­ty checks were grant­ed per­mis­sion to live and work in Trinidad and To­ba­go for an ini­tial pe­ri­od of one year.

Last week, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said 20,242 ap­pli­cants had been rec­om­mend­ed for MRF cards and Min­is­ter’s Per­mits as at Oc­to­ber 25, fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty vet­ting process.

Un­der the arrange­ments out­lined by the min­istry, ap­pli­cants must first check their sta­tus and as­signed col­lec­tion date on the of­fi­cial web­site, www.mi­grantreg­is­tra­tion.gov.tt.

Those ap­proved are re­quired to pay $710 at par­tic­i­pat­ing NL­CB Lot­to booths na­tion­wide. The fee com­pris­es $700 for the reg­is­tra­tion and a $10 trans­ac­tion charge.

Af­ter pay­ment, ap­pli­cants must at­tend the sta­di­um with their re­ceipts and the re­quired iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments to sign their Min­is­ter’s Per­mits and re­ceive their doc­u­ment pack­ages.

The min­istry said the cards and per­mits would be valid from No­vem­ber 1, 2026, to Oc­to­ber 31, 2027, and would al­low el­i­gi­ble hold­ers to live and work legal­ly in the coun­try dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

It al­so cau­tioned that the doc­u­ments were not trav­el doc­u­ments and would not per­mit hold­ers to leave and re-en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go while the per­mits re­mained valid.

The min­istry ad­vised ap­pli­cants whose ap­pli­ca­tions were pend­ing, un­suc­cess­ful or could not be lo­cat­ed to con­tact its MRF Help Desk be­fore mak­ing any pay­ment.