RHON­DOR DOWLAT 

Se­nior Re­porter 

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt 

The chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer has is­sued a no­tice to mem­bers of her staff ex­press­ing “great dis­tress” about an in­ci­dent be­tween an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer and an Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty se­cu­ri­ty guard, which left the of­fi­cer beat­en and bruised.

The no­tice was is­sued yes­ter­day and was meant to be con­fi­den­tial.

How­ev­er, a source at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion gave de­tails of the no­tice, which high­light­ed what chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer Mary Rosanne St Hill-Bilouin de­scribed as an “on­go­ing es­ca­la­tion in ag­gres­sion” by Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty (AA) se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel to­wards im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers on du­ty. The no­tice ad­dressed the phys­i­cal at­tack on im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer III as part of a con­cern­ing pat­tern of con­fronta­tions.

Po­lice said the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer, who su­per­vis­es the 2 pm to 10 pm shift, pre­sent­ed his ID through a glass par­ti­tion, fol­low­ing stan­dard pro­ce­dure. Af­ter com­ply­ing, he re­port­ed­ly turned to leave to take up his shift, but the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer al­leged­ly fol­lowed him, placed him in a head­lock, and forcibly re­strained him—all in plain sight of scores of trav­ellers.

Yes­ter­day, the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer ex­tend­ed best wish­es to the af­fect­ed of­fi­cer. She al­so un­der­scored the need for a safe work en­vi­ron­ment. The chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer al­so as­sured staff that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing, pledg­ing that this mat­ter “will not go un­ad­dressed.”

Ef­forts to con­tact the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

On Wednes­day, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers who spoke with Guardian Me­dia claimed the in­ci­dent was the lat­est in what they called an on­go­ing pat­tern of ag­gres­sion on the part of AA se­cu­ri­ty.

Some im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers al­so warned of pos­si­ble dis­rup­tions to air­port op­er­a­tions if their con­cerns were not ad­dressed.

How­ev­er, the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Deryck Richard­son, in­sist­ed that the se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer act­ed with­in the bounds of air­port se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­col.

“Our of­fi­cer was there for ac­cess con­trol, ex­act­ly as di­rect­ed, and footage will show that he fol­lowed pro­ce­dure,” Richard­son stat­ed. He not­ed that the of­fi­cer was fol­low­ing in­struc­tions to man­age ac­cess, ex­plain­ing, “This was not a case of ag­gres­sion. The se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer was sim­ply do­ing his job as pre­scribed.”

The mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by both the po­lice and the Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty.