As Gov­ern­ment an­nounced a two-weeks reg­is­tra­tion process of Venezue­lans liv­ing in T&T, which will be­gin next month, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on Thursday ad­mit­ted they ex­pect to face dif­fi­cul­ties with the en­tire “process” which is ex­pect­ed to cost tax­pay­ers $5 mil­lion.

One dif­fi­cul­ty, Young en­vis­age was that cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als would want to pass them­selves off as Venezue­lans, claim­ing they don’t have na­tion­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tions cards.

Young made the an­nounce­ment of the reg­is­tra­tion of all il­le­gal and le­gal Venezue­lans liv­ing in T&T which will be­gin on May 31 and ends on June 14 at Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, which he said Cab­i­net had ap­proved to de­ter­mine the num­ber of Venezue­lans re­sid­ing here.

The 14-days of reg­is­tra­tion will take place in Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ce­dros, Ari­ma and Scar­bor­ough be­tween the hours of 7 am and 5 pm un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who will work in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and Health Min­istry.

Venezue­lans housed at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre will be al­so be al­lowed to reg­is­ter.

Throngs of Venezue­lans have been ar­riv­ing in T&T for months in a bid to flee Venezuela’s eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis.

The Unit­ed Na­tions records of May 2018 re­port­ed that there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40,000 liv­ing in T&T- a fig­ure which Young said had some de­gree of un­cer­tain­ty.

In giv­ing de­tails of the reg­is­tra­tion process, Young said Venezue­lans must first pro­vide some proof of their na­tion­al­i­ty, fol­low­ing which they would be re­quired to full out a form, be fin­ger­print­ed, pho­tographed, face a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion and give their lo­cal ad­dress and con­tact num­ber.

Venezue­lans with­out iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards or pass­ports would be asked to sign a statu­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion form and re­port to the po­lice.

Dur­ing reg­is­tra­tion, trans­la­tors will be avail­able, Young said.

Fol­low­ing this, they will be pro­vid­ed with a reg­is­tra­tion card which would al­low them to work for one year.

At the end of the first six months, Young said the Venezue­lans would have to pro­vide the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion with an up­date on their sta­tus.

“They may be grant­ed an ex­ten­sion for an­oth­er six months.”

Young said his min­istry will work with In­ter­pol and agen­cies in Venezuela to en­sure the in­for­ma­tion on the forms sub­mit­ted are ac­cu­rate.

“If we find that per­sons lied on their forms we re­serve the right to de­port them. This is not a get out of jail card for crim­i­nals. If any­one com­mits any crim­i­nal act in T&T that reg­is­tra­tion card will not help you. You will be ar­rest­ed, charged and in­car­cer­at­ed,” Young said.

Young said his min­istry will work close­ly with In­ter­pol who will pro­vide our Gov­ern­ment with a crim­i­nal watch-list.

“If one of them (Venezue­lan) comes up on the reg­is­tra­tion process they will be de­tained.”

Will a Venezue­lan who has a crim­i­nal record be al­lowed to reg­is­ter?

In re­sponse to this ques­tion, Young said it would all de­pend on the na­ture of the crime, stat­ing that it will be dealt with on a case-by-case ba­sis.

“If it comes up on the radar that you were in Venezuela traf­fick­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion and nar­cotics as the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty I will de­port you.”

Young said one ben­e­fit, Venezue­lans will be en­ti­tled to free lim­it­ed pub­lic health care to treat in­juries, asth­ma, strokes, heart at­tacks, glau­co­ma, in­fec­tious dis­eases while im­mu­ni­sa­tion will be of­fered.

Any health is­sues out­side of this, Venezue­lans would have to pay from their pock­ets.

Young made it clear that “there is no guar­an­tee to the right to ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing or any oth­er Gov­ern­ment ser­vice for reg­is­tered Venezue­lans.”

They would al­so not be al­lowed to pay Na­tion­al In­sur­ance (NIS) but would face tax de­duc­tions once their month­ly salary cross­es $6,000.

Pay­ing NIS, Young said would en­ti­tle Venezue­lans to so­cial ser­vices.

Once Venezue­lans land them­selves jobs, Young said their em­ploy­ers ought to pay them the $15 an hour min­i­mum wage.

Ques­tioned what mea­sures would be put in place to avoid Venezue­lans be­ing ex­ploit­ed by em­ploy­ers, Young said the reg­is­tra­tion would help re­duce such ex­ploita­tion, stat­ing that if any­one is found com­mit­ting such an act the po­lice can take ac­tion.

“There are some Venezue­lans who ar­rive here...un­scrupu­lous char­ac­ters who had their pass­ports and ID cards tak­en away and have them in hu­man traf­fick­ing types sit­u­a­tions. There is no per­fect so­lu­tion. At the end of the day, we know there are go­ing to be dif­fi­cul­ties with this reg­is­tra­tion process. We have to over­come those dif­fi­cul­ties.”

Young did not de­ny that Venezue­lans in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty have been com­ing here.

He said the Gov­ern­ment will al­so re­view the cat­e­go­ry of all il­le­gal im­mi­grants in T&T, in­clud­ing those de­tained.