KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Al­though the Gov­ern­ment as­sured cit­i­zens that there are suf­fi­cient re­sources to com­bat il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion and the im­por­ta­tion of more COVID-19 cas­es, the law en­force­ment agen­cies task with this du­ty says they are se­vere­ly short­hand­ed.

Po­lice with­in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion who bat­tle the il­le­gal smug­gling of Venezue­lans along the Colum­bus Chan­nel and Ce­dros shore­line are not al­ways ar­rest­ing il­le­gal im­mi­grants. They told Guardian Me­dia that if there are no spaces at the po­lice sta­tion to de­tain im­mi­grants, they have no choice but to let them go. There is a prob­lem con­cern­ing de­ten­tion ac­com­mo­da­tions for these il­le­gal Venezue­lans. Po­lice sources said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly two weeks ago, they de­tained 11 im­mi­grants for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing T&T and put them in quar­an­tine at the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion be­cause the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties had nowhere to house them.

It was on­ly last Fri­day morn­ing that po­lice from an­oth­er unit trans­port­ed them to an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty. With the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre fre­quent­ly packed, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­vert­ed the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port to a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty for il­le­gal im­mi­grants.

“They said the he­li­port has no space, so we in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion sta­tions have to put our health at risk to house and feed them. The toi­lets in the sta­tion cells are not func­tion­ing, so we have to take them out to use our toi­lets which is a health risk.

“The fe­male de­tainees are tak­en by fe­male po­lice of­fi­cers to show­er on morn­ings and evenings in the fe­male po­lice dor­mi­to­ry. So the po­lice are not de­tain­ing them un­less ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary. Every day they come by boat­loads along the south­west­ern penin­su­la from Morne Di­a­blo in Pe­nal all the way down to Ce­dros,” the po­lice source said.

While it is Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy that any­one en­ter­ing T&T sub­mit to a na­sopha­ryn­geal swab for COVID-19 test­ing at the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency, health of­fi­cers on­ly test mi­grants if they ex­hib­it flu-like symp­toms.

“On de­ten­tion, the po­lice take them to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, and the doc­tors would ask them if they are sick. Ob­vi­ous­ly, they say no, then they are giv­en the 14-day quar­an­tine or­der. The health per­son­nel give po­lice a med­ical re­port signed by the at­tend­ing doc­tor stat­ing they have no in­juries. The po­lice take the il­le­gal Venezue­lans to the sta­tion and de­tain them. While at the sta­tion, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers in­ter­view the de­tainees and take their pho­tos. Po­lice al­so take their pho­tos.”

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Jayson Ford said com­plaints of in­ad­e­quate fa­cil­i­ties and over­crowd­ing of im­mi­grants in the South West­ern Di­vi­sion did not reach him up to Tues­day.

Ford could not say off-hand whether there was a con­tin­u­ous in­flux of il­le­gal im­mi­grants com­ing to T&T. 

Erin coun­cil­lor Ar­lene Ramdeo said po­lice con­tin­ue to cap­ture il­le­gal im­mi­grants en­ter­ing T&T through the Pa­lo Seco/Los Iros shore­line, but there have not been many sight­ings in Erin.

On Sep­tem­ber 12, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said the Min­istry would work with the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment to bet­ter pro­tect the bor­ders of this coun­try from il­le­gal Venezue­lan im­mi­grants. Young said the gov­ern­ment was do­ing every­thing in its pow­er to deal with il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion, which many have blamed for the up­surge in Covid-19 cas­es lo­cal­ly. How­ev­er, both he and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said there was no ev­i­dence to sup­port the claim that il­le­gal im­mi­grants were re­spon­si­ble for the rapid spread over the past two months.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Young about the num­ber of de­tained im­mi­grants, the repa­tri­a­tion back to their home coun­try and the state of T&T’s bor­der Se­cu­ri­ty on Tues­day af­ter­noon. Up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, he did not re­ply.

At yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Young said the Gov­ern­ment is se­cur­ing the bor­ders to the best of its abil­i­ty us­ing a mul­ti-agency ap­proach. He said that in re­cent times, the State be­gan repa­tri­at­ing il­le­gal im­mi­grants fol­low­ing lo­cal laws. He said that be­cause of the pan­dem­ic, some im­mi­grants might have COVID-19. The Min­istry of Health tests some of them at the he­li­port for COVID-19.

Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said that the il­le­gal en­try of Venezue­lans flee­ing their coun­tries so­cio-eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal is­sues re­mains “a nor­mal thing”.

“I just stopped high­light­ing it be­cause it seems to be a nor­mal thing,” Teelucks­ingh said.

Based on eye­wit­ness ac­counts in his elec­toral dis­trict, he said that be­tween last Tues­day and Wednes­day, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 im­mi­grants en­tered Trinidad via the Chatham South Beach. Sev­er­al im­mi­grants were al­so on the beach wait­ing to re­turn home.

“When they tell us about bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, if you talk to the coast guard, you will learn that some of the ves­sels are not sea­wor­thy, there is an is­sue with fu­el and per­son­nel. They can on­ly mon­i­tor sit­u­a­tions via radar, and even if they see things, they can­not in­ter­cept be­cause the ves­sels are in Ch­aguara­mas. You are not even see­ing the pres­ence of the coast guard at sea be­cause there is no ded­i­cat­ed ves­sel sta­tioned at Ce­dros.”

Just Sun­day, po­lice re­spond­ed to a re­port of il­le­gal Venezue­lan im­mi­grants at Erin Beach. When of­fi­cers ar­rived, some re­turned to a pirogue that sped to­wards the Ser­pent’s Mouth, while oth­ers ran in­to the bush­es. De­spite the search by the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol and Erin po­lice, the il­le­gal im­mi­grants re­mained at large up to yes­ter­day.

Teelucks­ingh said there was al­so some­one mak­ing fake reg­is­tra­tion cards that the gov­ern­ment in­tro­duced fol­low­ing its amnesty to im­mi­grants last year.

“They can get an amnesty card at cer­tain prices, so even if a po­lice or im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer stops them, they have a card.”

De­fense Force in­sid­ers said while the coast guard wants to block all il­le­gal ves­sels en­ter­ing, it lacks re­sources. An in­sid­er re­vealed that with­in the past week, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty de­port­ed over 80 Venezue­lans by tak­ing them to the mar­itime bor­der aboard a coast guard ves­sel and hand­ing them over to Venezuela’s Guardia Na­cional. Be­fore that, the Min­istry repa­tri­at­ed 180 Venezue­lans.

“The rea­son for do­ing that is be­cause the de­ten­tion hous­es can­not take so many peo­ple, so they are quar­an­tined and sent back to Venezuela. The coast guard ac­com­pa­nies the im­mi­grants to the bor­der where they meet the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties who take them back home. When they do this, is be­cause they can­not house so many peo­ple at a time and they did not charge them,” an in­sid­er said.

While some coast guard ves­sels are ful­ly func­tion­al, on­ly a few have ca­pa­bil­i­ties to use at night. Fu­el is al­so an is­sue. De­fence force per­son­nel said that at any giv­en time, there might be two coast guard ves­sels keep­ing watch.

“There are ser­vice­able ves­sels, but there is an is­sue with fu­el sup­ply. They can on­ly af­ford to have a cer­tain num­ber of boats out at sea at a time. Man­pow­er-wise, they can on­ly send out a small num­ber of of­fi­cers at a time. For us to prop­er­ly se­cure our bor­ders, we need more de­ploy­ment sta­tions around the coast­line. Even if it is a float­ing sta­tion like a barge in the sea, be­cause to make an in­ter­cep­tion in San Fer­nan­do when you are com­ing from Ch­aguara­mas, based on sea con­di­tions, weath­er and func­tion­al­i­ty of the boat, the chances of los­ing that tar­get are high.

“If you have sta­tions around Car­li Bay, Moru­ga and Morne Di­a­blo, a boat will not have to leave from Ce­dros or Ga­le­o­ta. Once we have the as­sets and funds to main­tain the ves­sels prop­er­ly, we can do this thing.”