KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With the grow­ing per­cep­tion that Venezue­lans are re­spon­si­ble for T&T's sec­ond wave of COVID-19 spread, hu­man rights ac­tivists say land­lords are now evict­ing mi­grants over the fear of pros­e­cu­tion by the State.
As a re­sult, TTV Sol­i­dar­i­ty Net­work di­rec­tor Hei­di Diquez is call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to end the per­se­cu­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants, whom she said are now fear­ing their lives.

Diquez yes­ter­day said she was cur­rent­ly deal­ing with one mi­grant fam­i­ly whose land­lord had changed his mind on rent­ing them an apart­ment fol­low­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young's state­ments last Sat­ur­day. 
Ms­gr Chris­t­ian Per­reira, who has been help­ing mi­grants at the St Bene­dict RC Church in La Ro­maine, al­so shared con­cerns, say­ing there is in­creased xeno­pho­bia against mi­grants af­ter the Gov­ern­ment sug­gest­ed the virus re­turned to T&T through il­le­gal mi­grants.

Both Diquez and Per­reira claimed po­lice are al­so round­ing up mi­grants, in­clud­ing those who reg­is­tered with the amnesty pro­gramme last year.
"They are afraid for their lives, afraid to get de­tained. Even those with their refugee cards are get­ting de­tained. Po­lice are com­ing in their homes with no pro­tec­tion and un­der what grounds? This wave of xeno­pho­bia could end very neg­a­tive­ly on the Venezuela sit­u­a­tion," Diquez told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.
She said the grow­ing xeno­pho­bia stemmed from Young's warn­ing last week­end that any cit­i­zen who har­bours or fa­cil­i­tates the en­try of il­le­gal im­mi­grants in­to T&T will be ar­rest­ed and charged. Land­lords who rent to il­le­gal im­mi­grants and busi­ness own­ers who al­low for­eign­ers to dis­em­bark car­go ships face the same fate. Young al­so warned reg­is­tered mi­grants that their mi­grant cards would be re­voked and they would be de­port­ed if they as­sist oth­ers in en­ter­ing il­le­gal­ly.

Diquez said as mi­grants at­tempt to build a life away from the so­cio-eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis in Venezuela, some have brought in their chil­dren over time. She com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for fi­nal­ly seek­ing to pro­tect the bor­ders, not­ing Venezue­lans need­ed that pro­tec­tion as well be­cause of smug­glers. How­ev­er, she ques­tioned whether the State is per­se­cut­ing mi­grants be­cause of al­leged in­volve­ment in hu­man traf­fick­ing or proof that they have COVID-19.

Christian Pereira

"We ad­vised the min­istry through many means that there are many in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies with the re­sources that are will­ing to help. The min­istry knew about the mi­gra­tion ever since, but to come now to per­se­cute those who are in Trinidad al­ready is an­oth­er sto­ry," she said.

"The po­lice are go­ing to hous­es at mid­night and dur­ing the day, ter­ri­fy­ing kids be­cause of al­leged re­ports. They are cre­at­ing a lot of xeno­pho­bia and we have seen videos of po­lice de­tain­ing Venezue­lan, al­leged­ly with COVID, and not wear­ing masks. Are you do­ing this for COVID-19 or do you think they are in­volved in hu­man traf­fick­ing? The min­is­ter needs to come clean."

Per­reira mean­while rub­bished claims that Venezue­lans were re­spon­si­ble for the new COVID-19 wave, say­ing that of the 150-plus con­firmed cas­es, none are Venezue­lans. He said there is the on­ly sus­pi­cion that a taxi dri­ver, who is a con­firmed COVID-19 case, had trans­port­ed mi­grants. And while some say mi­grants are com­mit­ting mon­ey laun­der­ing and hu­man traf­fick­ing, Per­reira said this long ex­ist­ed in T&T and gov­ern­ments can­not ar­rest these per­pe­tra­tors, as some are par­ty fi­nanciers. He said smug­glers and pimps duped many mi­grants in­to com­ing to T&T with the promise of good jobs. In­stead, he said these crim­i­nals steal young women's pass­ports and force them in­to slav­ery and pros­ti­tu­tion.

"The peo­ple's lives are un­der threat that they have to be hid­ing in the La Ro­maine area. I know a fam­i­ly in hid­ing right now be­cause they do not know when a po­lice gang will come to round up peo­ple," Pereira said.

"The po­lice and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers are tak­ing those who have reg­is­tra­tion cards or not. I know a few peo­ple with valid cards and they sent them back. The po­lice said they do not care about that."

He said just like there are crim­i­nals in T&T, it is the same in oth­er parts of the world and if the po­lice know who they are they should take ac­tion. But he said as for law-abid­ing mi­grants who are just work­ing to pro­vide for their fam­i­lies back home, the coun­try should have a heart.
"Many are de­cent hu­man be­ings seek­ing a bet­ter way of life. They did not come here be­cause they want to but be­cause they want some­thing bet­ter for them­selves and their fam­i­lies," Pereira said.
Per­reira called on the Gov­ern­ment to leave mi­grants who are try­ing to make a bet­ter life for them­selves and fam­i­lies and fo­cus on the re­al crim­i­nals and big fish­es.