Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Sta­tis­tics from the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) of­fice in Port-of-Spain show that few­er mi­grants are seek­ing asy­lum in T&T. This is due to sec­ondary move­ment among the mi­grants which means they move on to oth­er coun­tries where they think con­di­tions could be bet­ter.

The UN­HCR does not track cross-bor­der move­ments. Its sta­tis­tics are based on month­ly fig­ures for in­di­vid­u­als who have ap­proached its part­ner, Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty, seek­ing asy­lum here. That da­ta shows that from a peak of 517 in­di­vid­u­als in April 2021, there has been a gen­er­al down­ward trend in the num­bers of peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum.

The fewest num­ber of asy­lum seek­ers ap­proached Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty last De­cem­ber 2021. Since then, the num­bers have grad­u­al­ly in­creased, av­er­ag­ing in the mid-200s in the first quar­ter of this year. 

“While Venezue­lans are the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple who seek asy­lum in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the fig­ures re­flect­ed in this chart in­clude all na­tion­al­i­ties.

“Re­gion­al­ly, UN­HCR has ob­served an in­crease in sec­ondary move­ments (move­ments from the coun­try of asy­lum to an­oth­er coun­try) among refugees and asy­lum-seek­ers who are search­ing for se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty, as a re­sult of COVID-19’s so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact on prospects for lo­cal in­te­gra­tion in host coun­tries,” the agency said in a note to the Sun­day Guardian.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has im­pact­ed the lives and liveli­hoods of refugees and mi­grants, es­pe­cial­ly those em­ployed in the ser­vice and in­for­mal sec­tors, which were most af­fect­ed by re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed to mit­i­gate the spread of the virus. 

“Now that re­stric­tions have for the most part been lift­ed in T&T, UN­HCR is hope­ful refugees and mi­grants will now be able to find sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment.

“UN­HCR is grate­ful to the Gov­ern­ment of T&T for al­low­ing refugees and mi­grants ac­cess to COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions, an im­por­tant step in help­ing the coun­try re­turn to nor­mal.

“UN­HCR con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate for in­clu­sion and in­te­gra­tion of refugees and mi­grants with­in their host com­mu­ni­ties and works close­ly with part­ners and stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing state agen­cies, to en­sure peo­ple who are forced to flee can live in safe­ty and with dig­ni­ty.”

In re­cent months there has been a trend of Venezue­lan mi­grants who had sought refuge in T&T re­turn­ing to their coun­try. Last year there were sev­er­al repa­tri­a­tion ex­er­cis­es, a joint ef­fort be­tween the Venezue­lan and T&T gov­ern­ments, in which hun­dreds of Venezue­lans vol­un­tar­i­ly re­turned to their home­land.

Help for mi­grants

Head of Of­fice for the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) Jew­el Ali said while some Venezue­lans are leav­ing the coun­try, oth­ers are com­ing in and it is dif­fi­cult to give sta­tis­tics for how many are cur­rent­ly in the coun­try.

She said the IOM, an in­ter-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, re­views leg­is­la­tion that af­fects mi­grants, pro­vides train­ing and of­fers ser­vices for mi­grants such as pro­vid­ing food and oth­er ba­sic items.

She as­sured that the or­gan­i­sa­tion will con­tin­ue to as­sist refugees to have a bet­ter life in this coun­try.

“Peo­ple have con­tin­ued to come, some have con­tin­ued to leave,” Ali said.

“I would say, as one of the agen­cies re­spond­ing, we have been able to de­liv­er food sup­port. The year be­fore last, about 70 per cent of mi­grants lost their jobs be­cause of COVID and last year it was about 66 per cent. That’s sig­nif­i­cant.

“Peo­ple need jobs and food. Rent is al­so ex­pen­sive and some mi­grants are be­ing un­der­paid. We tend to use food vouch­ers. Last No­vem­ber/De­cem­ber we dis­trib­uted 2,000 vouch­ers to Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als and al­so mi­grants.”

Ali said the IOM, which is fund­ed by the US Gov­ern­ment, will con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port to all na­tion­al­i­ties.

The Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty said in a state­ment that with the re­open­ing of T&T’s bor­ders there has been a gen­er­al in­crease in the num­ber of re­cent­ly ar­rived mi­grants seek­ing asy­lum and ac­cess to its so­cial ser­vices.

“Those re­turn­ing to their coun­tries of ori­gin have been due large­ly to the ris­ing cost of liv­ing and as such be­ing un­able to meet ba­sic needs in­clud­ing food and rent.

“Many leave and re­turn to their home coun­tries to then tran­sit to an­oth­er coun­try such as Guyana, Colom­bia and Brazil where they hope to get ac­cess to le­gal work op­por­tu­ni­ties and ed­u­ca­tion for their chil­dren.”

Co-or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine said she does not have ex­act sta­tis­tics but from her ob­ser­va­tion work­ing with mi­grants, the trend is that many are re­turn­ing home and then pos­si­bly mov­ing on to oth­er coun­tries.

“There is a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber want­i­ng to go back home. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion is tight.

“This is more the old­er gen­er­a­tion of mi­grants who have been here for over three years who prob­a­bly earned and saved enough to go back. At the same time, we are see­ing new­er faces com­ing in so it is a flu­id sit­u­a­tion,” Ram­nar­ine said.

Venezue­lan reg­is­tra­tions

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry has grant­ed an ex­ten­sion to De­cem­ber 31, 2022, of the va­lid­i­ty of work per­mits for Venezue­lan na­tion­als who reg­is­tered be­tween March 8 and April 9, 2021.

Per­mits were grant­ed to 16,523 Venezue­lans in May 2019. In Au­gust 2020, they were ex­tend­ed un­til De­cem­ber of that year as a re­sult of the pan­dem­ic.

In Jan­u­ary 2021, a sec­ond six-month ex­ten­sion and re-reg­is­tra­tion were an­nounced. More than 13,800 Venezue­lans re-reg­is­tered in 2021.