Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment will be­gin is­su­ing mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion cards from No­vem­ber 1.

Speak­ing dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to the 2027 Bud­get de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment had spent sev­er­al months screen­ing un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants to en­sure that those re­ceiv­ing the cards were prop­er­ly iden­ti­fied.

The cards form part of the Gov­ern­ment’s Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work, which was launched ear­li­er this year to al­low un­doc­u­ment­ed mi­grants of all na­tion­al­i­ties to reg­is­ter to live and work legal­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Un­like the 2019 reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise, which fo­cused on Venezue­lan na­tion­als, the ex­pand­ed pro­gramme cov­ers el­i­gi­ble mi­grants re­gard­less of na­tion­al­i­ty.

The process in­volves on­line reg­is­tra­tion, in-per­son in­ter­views, iden­ti­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion and se­cu­ri­ty screen­ing.

Suc­cess­ful adult ap­pli­cants are re­quired to pay $700 be­fore re­ceiv­ing their cards.

The cards con­tain iden­ti­fy­ing in­for­ma­tion, in­clud­ing the hold­er’s name, date of birth, pho­to­graph and per­mit ex­piry date. Un­der the ex­ist­ing frame­work, the au­tho­ri­sa­tion to live and work legal­ly ex­pires on De­cem­ber 31, 2026.

Alexan­der pre­vi­ous­ly ex­plained that the ini­tia­tive was al­so in­tend­ed to as­sist law en­force­ment by es­tab­lish­ing where mi­grants were liv­ing and work­ing, while iden­ti­fy­ing in­di­vid­u­als who could pose se­cu­ri­ty risks.

Yes­ter­day, he said the Gov­ern­ment had tak­en its time to en­sure the process was prop­er­ly con­duct­ed.

“We took a num­ber of months, al­most a year, to com­plete this mis­sion be­cause we want­ed prop­er in­for­ma­tion from the per­sons,” he told Par­lia­ment.

He al­leged that un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, some in­di­vid­u­als re­ceived im­mi­gra­tion doc­u­men­ta­tion with­out ad­e­quate back­ground checks.

Alexan­der in­sist­ed that the Gov­ern­ment would not tol­er­ate mi­grants be­com­ing in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

“You can­not come to Trinidad and To­ba­go and per­form acts of cru­el­ty and mur­der on its cit­i­zens,” he de­clared.

Turn­ing to im­mi­gra­tion mod­erni­sa­tion, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment was hop­ing to in­tro­duce elec­tron­ic pass­ports by the be­gin­ning of 2027.

He al­so high­light­ed ef­forts to move im­mi­gra­tion ser­vices on­line, re­duc­ing the re­liance on lengthy pa­per­work.

On polic­ing, the min­is­ter de­fend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of po­lice mi­cro-units at Tarou­ba, Grand Bazaar and El Do­ra­do, along with three lo­ca­tions in To­ba­go.

He said the Op­po­si­tion had crit­i­cised the ini­tia­tive, but main­tained the units were al­ready pro­duc­ing re­sults.

Cit­ing a rob­bery at Grand Bazaar, Alexan­der claimed po­lice ar­rest­ed sus­pects and re­cov­ered stolen mon­ey with­in ten min­utes of the in­ci­dent.

He al­so cred­it­ed the po­lice pres­ence at El Do­ra­do with im­prov­ing se­cu­ri­ty in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment was tar­get­ing 700 po­lice of­fi­cers by year-end as part of ef­forts to ad­dress man­pow­er short­ages.

He de­fend­ed po­lice over­time pay­ments, ar­gu­ing that of­fi­cers were be­ing forced to work ad­di­tion­al hours be­cause there were in­suf­fi­cient per­son­nel to re­place them.

The min­is­ter al­so an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment was await­ing the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s re­cruit­ment of an­oth­er 150 fire of­fi­cers.

He said aux­il­iary fire­fight­ers who had served for years with­out per­ma­nent ap­point­ments had been reg­u­larised, while ef­forts were un­der­way to re­pair and re­dis­trib­ute fire trucks to strength­en emer­gency re­sponse.

How­ev­er, Alexan­der al­so used his con­tri­bu­tion to de­fend his qual­i­fi­ca­tions to lead the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lio.

De­scrib­ing him­self as a crime fight­er, the for­mer se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said that while he did not pos­sess nu­mer­ous aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, he had earned what he jok­ing­ly called a mas­ter’s de­gree in “Thugol­o­gy.”

“Don’t Google it,” he told Par­lia­ment, ex­plain­ing that his qual­i­fi­ca­tion came from years of deal­ing with crim­i­nal be­hav­iour on the streets.

He said his ex­pe­ri­ence in com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go had giv­en him a prac­ti­cal un­der­stand­ing of crime and those in­volved in it.

Alexan­der main­tained that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ap­point­ed him be­cause she want­ed some­one with first­hand ex­pe­ri­ence fight­ing crime.