Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith has sought to high­light the le­nient penal­ties be­ing hand­ed down to il­le­gal im­mi­grants.

In a press re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) yes­ter­day, Grif­fith point­ed to the case of 24 il­le­gal im­mi­grants, who were rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged by a mag­is­trate af­ter plead­ing guilty to il­le­gal en­try in­to the coun­try.

The re­lease said: “The com­mis­sion­er says that there is far too much lib­er­ty be­ing af­ford­ed by ju­di­cial of­fi­cers to the il­le­gal Venezue­lan en­trants which per­me­ate our bor­ders, with­out any form of re­dress for their mis­deeds, and who are like­ly to be bring­ing the COVID-19 virus to our shores.”

He sug­gest­ed that such le­nient sen­tences would serve to em­bold­en mi­grants as there is no de­ter­rent ef­fect.

He point­ed to Sec­tion 40 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, which makes il­le­gal en­try an of­fence and car­ries a penal­ty of a $50,000 fine and three years im­pris­on­ment for first time of­fend­ers. Re­peat of­fend­ers are li­able to a max­i­mum $100,000 fine and up to five years in prison.

Grif­fith al­so re­vealed that 12 peo­ple, who were re­cent­ly con­vict­ed of aid­ing and abet­ting Venezue­lan mi­grants at il­le­gal ports of en­try, were each fined $1,500, a frac­tion of the max­i­mum penal­ty pos­si­ble un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

He al­so not­ed that the TTPS could ap­ply un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act for ve­hi­cles found to be used to trans­port il­le­gal im­mi­grants to be seized and for­feit­ed.

Grif­fith warned that un­der the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance and as­so­ci­at­ed reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, po­lice of­fi­cers can al­so charge il­le­gal mi­grants with a sep­a­rate of­fence for en­ter­ing the coun­try with­out an ex­emp­tion due to the clo­sure of the coun­try’s bor­ders. That of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of a $250,000 fine and up to six months in prison.