Refugees In­ter­na­tion­al has wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s move to grant Venezue­lans ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion. This move by Row­ley is sig­nif­i­cant as Venezue­lans, refugees, and asy­lum seek­ers cur­rent­ly have no le­gal sta­tus.

Pres­i­dent of Refugees In­ter­na­tion­al Er­ic Schwartz “ap­plaud­ed” Row­ley’s de­ci­sion.

“I ap­plaud the prime min­is­ter’s ex­pressed com­mit­ment to work to­ward reg­u­lar­is­ing the sta­tus of Venezue­lans by cre­at­ing new poli­cies that will im­prove the lives of tens of thou­sands of vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple seek­ing refuge on the is­lands. We urge the Trinida­di­an Gov­ern­ment to take ac­tion not on­ly with re­spect to Venezue­lans but al­so to grant op­por­tu­ni­ties to those of oth­er na­tion­al­i­ties to reg­u­larise their sta­tus,” Schwartz said.

In a me­dia re­lease, Refugees In­ter­na­tion­al said that in No­vem­ber 2018 one of its teams came to T&T to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion of Venezue­lans on the is­lands.

The in­ter­na­tion­al group is­sued a re­port on Jan­u­ary 28, which con­tained de­tails of in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­duct­ed in the coun­try by the RI’s Melanie Teff. Teff, an ex­pert on dis­place­ment crises said that she spoke with asy­lum seek­ers and refugees from Venezuela in T&T.

“It quick­ly be­came clear that the sta­tus quo is un­ac­cept­able. The news that the prime min­is­ter is work­ing to grant Venezue­lans the right to work and ed­u­ca­tion is a pos­i­tive step in the right di­rec­tion. As the cri­sis in their re­gion deep­ens, the Gov­ern­ment must con­sid­er long-term mi­gra­tion poli­cies and en­act leg­is­la­tion on refugees and asy­lum,” Teff said in the me­dia state­ment.

The RI state­ment said that since the po­lit­i­cal and so­cial cri­sis in Venezuela, T&T re­ceived more than 40,000 refugees but “lit­tle has been done to sup­port them”.

The re­port said that in­stead Venezue­lan refugees and mi­grants are of­ten forced to live in hid­ing in T&T.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, in T&T the refugees can­not reg­u­larise their sta­tus un­less they sat­is­fy var­i­ous cri­te­ria stip­u­lat­ed un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion Act. The RI said that a vast ma­jor­i­ty of asy­lum seek­ers and refugees can­not meet those re­quire­ments.

Al­so, the lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy is a “work in progress” so Venezue­lans who come to T&T are of­ten left with­out any means to re­side legal­ly or sup­port them­selves.

“RI was told that, as of No­vem­ber 2018, an es­ti­mat­ed 440 peo­ple were in de­ten­tion in T&T where they lack ad­e­quate ac­cess to le­gal as­sis­tance and med­ical care,” the re­port not­ed.