RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Some 160 Venezue­lans were de­port­ed to their home­land by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ear­li­er this week.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that 80 Venezue­lans were de­port­ed on Tues­day and an­oth­er 81 on Wednes­day, in­clud­ing a 35-year-old Venezue­lan woman who was al­leged to have suf­fered a mis­car­riage last month while she was de­tained at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, through its Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, con­firmed that 161 Venezue­lan na­tion­als who were the sub­ject of de­por­ta­tion or­ders and/or oth­er op­er­a­tions of law, as part of the pol­i­cy of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, were repa­tri­at­ed. The repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cise took place over the pe­ri­od of De­cem­ber 20 and 21, the min­istry said.

It dis­closed that the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment’s ves­sel docked at Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas, on both days to fa­cil­i­tate the trans­porta­tion of the mi­grants.

“The repa­tri­a­tion process was su­per­vised by of­fi­cials of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard, along with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Venezue­lan Em­bassy,” the min­istry said.

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds said, “The Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy is quite clear. We have made arrange­ments to host all of those Venezue­lans who reg­is­tered in our Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work, and to al­low them to work and en­joy the pro­tec­tion of the laws and Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“But, where per­sons are found out­side of this frame­work, and/or oth­er­wise out­side of the purview of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act of Trinidad and To­ba­go; or any oth­er crim­i­nal laws, they will not en­joy such pro­tec­tion. The repa­tri­a­tion went quite smooth­ly and I thank the of­fi­cials of the Venezue­lan Em­bassy for their usu­al and con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­port.”

Yes­ter­day’s re­lease was, how­ev­er, the first in re­cent times con­firm­ing that the repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cis­es were done in a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween T&T and Venezuela.

Ear­li­er this year, be­tween Ju­ly to Sep­tem­ber, scores of Venezue­lans were trans­port­ed from the He­li­port to Staubles Bay and then trans­port­ed via T&T Coast Guard ves­sels and hand­ed over to Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties on the sea.