RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Un­der cloudy skies, the re-reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lan mi­grants got off to a slow start in San Fer­nan­do this morn­ing.

Up to 10 am, on­ly about a dozen mi­grants had de­liv­ered their forms in the drop off box, set up at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of­fice at Knox Street, San Fer­nan­do.

A hand­ful of Venezue­lans shel­tered from the rain op­po­site the of­fice.

Venezue­lan mi­grant De­lores Matil told Guardian Me­dia she was pleased that the process went smooth­ly.

"I was num­ber three. They asked me a ques­tion and I dropped off my form and I was done in two min­utes," Matil said.

She urged oth­er Venezue­lan na­tion­als to or­ga­nize their forms ear­ly and drop them off, has­sle-free, as soon as they could.

For­mer Venezue­lan Judge Manuel Romero told Guardian Me­dia that he planned to drop off his doc­u­ments lat­er this week. He said he was still in the process of get­ting sup­port­ing doc­u­ments but was hap­py that the process was a smooth one.

How­ev­er, the co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, said some Venezue­lans faced dif­fi­cul­ties.

She ex­plained that get­ting a stamped job let­ter as well as down­load­ing the forms posed a prob­lem for some peo­ple, so LAMS as­sist­ed.

"We have to re­mem­ber that the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion is flu­id and dy­nam­ic. Since they reg­is­tered in 2019, many of them have moved to oth­er parts of the coun­try and formed their di­as­po­ra. This means they may re-reg­is­ter in oth­er parts of the coun­try," she added.

Ram­nar­ine al­so said many of the mi­grants did house clean­ing and odd jobs, which meant their em­ploy­er could not pro­vide stamped job let­ters.

"It's a five-page doc­u­ment and a few peo­ple had prob­lems down­load­ing it," she said. She al­so said LAMS was as­sist­ing mi­grants with pho­to­copy­ing their forms.

Ram­nar­ine ex­pressed re­lief that the process was smooth.

"This time it is much more or­der­ly than the ini­tial reg­is­tra­tion process. The mi­grants have two weeks to re-reg­is­ter, and we think that on­ly a few came out this morn­ing be­cause many of them had to work or may not have all the ac­com­pa­ny­ing doc­u­ments to go with the form."

More than 16,000 mi­grants who fled the so­cio-eco­nom­ic tur­moil in Venezuela, are ex­pect­ed to re-reg­is­ter at Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion Of­fices across the coun­try. Reg­is­tra­tion is ex­pect­ed to close on March 26.

Guardian Me­dia will bring you more as this sto­ry un­folds.