Venezue­lan refugees say they have nowhere to turn for re­dress over the in­jus­tices they ex­pe­ri­ence while seek­ing refuge in T&T be­cause both Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of­fi­cials and po­lice of­fi­cers are al­so met­ing out un­just treat­ment to them.

Venezue­lan-born ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­les made the claim yes­ter­day, as she re­spond­ed to a call by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for Venezue­lans who have ev­i­dence of such treat­ment to take it to the po­lice.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les agreed with Young’s call for such mat­ters to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed but said it’s not as straight­for­ward as mak­ing a re­port to the of­fi­cials. She said this was so be­cause in­for­ma­tion reach­ing her from the refugees in­di­cates the po­lice and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials are al­so im­pli­cat­ed in the abuse of refugees.

“There is po­lice in Trinidad and To­ba­go that walk­ing in the street free and they are crim­i­nals and they rape women. They pay the men to buy the girls and keep them traf­fick­ing all over the place. We have in­for­ma­tion,” Gon­za­les said.

“How you ex­pect to tell every­body, all the Venezue­lans to go and make a re­port to the po­lice and you know when you go to the po­lice they put you in jail and beat you down and they throw (in­audi­ble) in the cell and curs­ing you.”

She said she be­lieves Young is try­ing his best but he needs to lis­ten to the plight of the refugees and im­mi­grants as well, not on­ly his of­fi­cers. She, how­ev­er, con­ced­ed that she would be will­ing to make a re­port to the po­lice if Young ac­com­pa­nies her to the sta­tion.

One refugee who has been in the coun­try for the past three years, speak­ing un­der con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, ex­plained some of the hard­ships they face.

“A lot of Venezue­lans ex­pe­ri­ence xeno­pho­bia. They ex­pe­ri­ence a lot of bad treat­ment from the Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers, from the po­lice, be­cause a lot of po­lice hold them up and even if you show them all the pa­pers, all the ID cards the UN gave them—every­thing—they just don’t care. They tell you this don’t have a val­ue in this coun­try and rip it up,” he said.

“I don’t know why they have this stereo­type about Venezue­lans. They feel all Venezue­lans com­ing here to take their mon­ey, they feel all Venezue­lans com­ing here to take their hous­es. We are not ask­ing them for hous­es, or food.

“A lot of Venezue­lans com­ing here work­ing for less than min­i­mum wage and they keep up and send mon­ey to Venezuela and pay rent—the same rent that a lot of Trinida­di­an de­pend on to keep up.”