Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on Thursday said Gov­ern­ment had no role in the de­ci­sion to grant 101 un­doc­u­ment­ed Venezue­lans su­per­vi­sion or­ders on Wednes­day.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia what was the ba­sis for the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion to grant su­per­vi­sion or­ders to the Venezue­lan mi­grants who were lat­er re­leased and had no place to go, Young replied “I could not say what is the de­ci­sion tak­en by the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers. I can tell you that the Gov­ern­ment did not par­tic­i­pate in that de­ci­sion of what took place yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) af­ter­noon.”

Young ad­mit­ted that be­fore he at­tend­ed yes­ter­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing, he held dis­cus­sions with var­i­ous se­cu­ri­ty agency heads, which in­clud­ed the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Chief of De­fence Staff, head of Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er.

“You have to un­der­stand there are lim­it­ed fa­cil­i­ties for hold­ing per­sons so that is some­thing we are go­ing to be work­ing on. I think they just took a de­ci­sion on the ground...I was told that per­sons are hold­ing to the terms of their su­per­vi­sion or­ders so they are ac­tu­al­ly turn­ing up when they are sup­posed to.”

Asked about the sta­tus of these Venezue­lans, Young laughed say­ing it was im­pos­si­ble to tell where they are.

“I as­sumed they have dis­persed wher­ev­er it is through­out Trinidad.”

At to­day’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty CPressed for an up­date on the reg­is­tra­tion process for Venezue­lans which is due to be­gin next Fri­day, Young said he would give de­tails at an­oth­er press con­fer­ence.

The reg­is­tra­tion will take place in Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ce­dros, Ari­ma and Scar­bor­ough.

Ear­li­er this week, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vised there were look­ing for trans­la­tors to help with the reg­is­tra­tion.

Young said the Venezue­lan Em­bassy will have a role in the reg­is­tra­tion process, stat­ing there must be “due dili­gence.”

T&T rights for mi­grant ba­bies

Any Venezue­lan woman who gives birth in T&T can reg­is­ter their child as a T&T cit­i­zen.

“It doesn’t mat­ter where you come from. As long as you are born in Trinidad and To­ba­go you lay claim to cit­i­zen­ship. It doesn’t mat­ter who your fa­ther or moth­er is or where you come from. Once the birth takes place in our bor­der you lay claim to cit­i­zen­ship,” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said when asked if a Venezue­lan who gives birth here can reg­is­ter her ba­by as a T&T cit­i­zen.

He said this pol­i­cy was not dif­fer­ent in the Unit­ed States or Eng­land, as this was an in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard.

“We are pleased to up­hold that,” he said.