Illegal immigrants included in expanded registration framework

The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is ex­pand­ing the Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work to in­clude all el­i­gi­ble il­le­gal im­mi­grants cur­rent­ly re­sid­ing with­in the coun­try’s bor­ders, mov­ing be­yond the pre­vi­ous ex­clu­sive fo­cus on Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said the ex­pan­sion forms part of a strate­gic ef­fort to pro­mote eq­ui­ty and bol­ster na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

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

The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty will over­see the is­suance of reg­is­trant cards, which will dis­play an in­di­vid­ual’s name, date of birth, pho­to­graph and ex­pi­ra­tion date.

In ad­di­tion, Le­gal No­tice No. 469 amends the Im­mi­gra­tion Reg­u­la­tions to specif­i­cal­ly in­clude the chil­dren of im­mi­grants who hold a per­mit is­sued un­der Sec­tion 10 of the Act, en­sur­ing their sta­tus is recog­nised along­side their par­ents.

The min­istry said the ex­pan­sion aims to fa­cil­i­tate com­pre­hen­sive da­ta col­lec­tion and al­low the State a greater lev­el of con­trol over the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion while ad­dress­ing pub­lic safe­ty con­cerns.

The re­lease said that while the reg­is­tra­tion path­way pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for com­pli­ance, the min­istry re­mains firm in its com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing cit­i­zens by ad­dress­ing high-risk in­di­vid­u­als with­in mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties.

It said the min­istry has rec­om­mend­ed the de­por­ta­tion of il­le­gal im­mi­grants who have com­mit­ted crim­i­nal of­fences or who are deemed high-risk.

The mat­ter has been re­ferred to Cab­i­net for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion to fi­nalise co­or­di­na­tion ef­forts, which will re­quire the Min­istry of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs to en­gage with rel­e­vant con­sulates and em­bassies through diplo­mat­ic chan­nels to fa­cil­i­tate de­por­ta­tions and dis­cuss po­ten­tial cost-shar­ing mea­sures.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der said the ex­er­cise rep­re­sents a key step to­ward safe­guard­ing bor­ders and com­mu­ni­ties.

“By tran­si­tion­ing to this holis­tic, eq­ui­table frame­work among all il­le­gal im­mi­grants, the Gov­ern­ment aims to en­sure that those who con­tribute to so­ci­ety can do so legal­ly, while those who pose a threat are re­moved,” Alexan­der said.

The min­istry said the reg­is­tra­tion process will be­gin in Jan­u­ary 2026, with fur­ther de­tails on reg­is­tra­tion cen­tres and spe­cif­ic re­quire­ments to be pub­lished in the com­ing weeks.