The fi­nal fig­ure for the num­ber of Venezue­lans who reg­is­tered in the re­cent two-week amnesty process is 16,523.

The pre­lim­i­nary fig­ure which was giv­en at the end of the ex­er­cise was over 15,000.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young gave the up­dat­ed fig­ure in Tues­day night’s Sen­ate de­bate.

This fo­cused on an Op­po­si­tion mo­tion seek­ing to an­nul Gov­ern­ment’s Im­mi­gra­tion reg­u­la­tions. The reg­u­la­tions are geared to al­low the Venezue­lans who are reg­is­tered to work for a year in T&T with­out hav­ing to ap­ply for a work per­mit sep­a­rate­ly.

Young de­nied the reg­u­la­tions were meant to al­low Venezue­lans to be­come T&T res­i­dents or cit­i­zens who would be el­i­gi­ble to vote in polls.