In a news release on Tuesday, which supported comments she made at a consultation on criminal justice reform in Barataria on Monday, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar stated that "every day for the last year, there were reports of violent crimes being committed by illegal Venezuelan migrants against our citizens."
"I will not stand idly by, as this current government has done, and allow more citizens like Mr Winston Thomas to be terrorised and murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrants," she added.
Taken literally, these two sentences suggest that the veteran politician has evidence that for every one of the last 365 days, the T&T Police Service has received reports of "violent crimes being committed by Venezuelan migrants against our citizens." This would suggest an epidemic of criminality by citizens of T&T's nearest neighbour, most of whom have travelled to this country to escape the depressed economy and unstable political situation in their South American homeland.
Her statement amounts to hyperbolic and derogatory stigmatisation of a group of people, the majority of whom are hard-working and law-abiding. The other unfortunate point about the quotation from Mrs Persad-Bissessar is her reference to Winston Thomas, who she claims was "terrorised and murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrants."
She is quoted later in her news release as saying witnesses said Mr Thomas was stabbed in his head by Spanish-speaking suspects. She is stating as a fact that Venezuelans were responsible for this crime, when it may have been Spanish-speaking people from any number of countries in this hemisphere.
Also, it is noteworthy that the Opposition Leader did not call on the eyewitnesses to this crime to assist the police. In her news release, however, Mrs Persad-Bissessar did call on the Venezuelan community in T&T to assist the police in fighting the criminal activities of their fellow citizens.
She is quoted as saying, "Today I make it clear, if the Venezuelan migrant community do not get their act in order and desist from engaging in criminal conduct, begin assisting the T&T Police Service in identifying Venezuelan criminals, and integrate peacefully into our society, my incoming government will take aggressive action against ALL illegal Venezuelan migrants and deport every one of them to their homeland by any means necessary."
The threat to take aggressive action against ALL illegal Venezuelan migrants if this community does not assist the police in identifying Venezuelan criminals is ludicrous and absurd for two reasons: Firstly, it suggests that there are hundreds of Spanish-speaking Trinidadian police officers, working at stations across the country, who are capable of taking evidence from Venezuelans. Secondly, since all Venezuelans who have not been registered and received work permit exemptions are here illegally, the leader of the United National Congress may well be suggesting a wholesale rounding up and deportation of people who look Venezuelan.
This sounds very similar to rhetoric emanating from Donald Trump during his recent successful campaign to become the US president. A main plank of the Trump campaign was the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and it would not be surprising if Mrs Persad-Bissessar will one day soon claim—like Trump did about migrants in the US—that Venezuelans are eating the dogs and cats of T&T citizens.
It seems Mrs Persad-Bissessar is not satisfied with taking a page from Mr Trump's playbook. She wants the entire document. It may also be that she is trying to create a distinction between her party and the current administration, which has sought out allies in Caracas and in Washington, DC, with the outgoing Biden administration, in an attempt to secure cross-border natural gas from Venezuela. If she is, perhaps she is expecting an invitation to Mar-a-Lago, Mr Trump's Florida residence.