Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Be­have or be de­port­ed! That was the blunt warn­ing yes­ter­day from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to delin­quent Venezue­lan mi­grants as she dou­bled down on the po­si­tion she aired at Mon­day’s UNC crim­i­nal jus­tice re­form con­sul­ta­tion in Barataria.

“Il­le­gal Venezue­lan mi­grants have a clear choice to make: ei­ther peace­ful, law-abid­ing habi­ta­tion in our coun­try or de­por­ta­tion, there is no mid­dle ground. Their fu­ture with­in our coun­try rests sole­ly in the de­ci­sions they make in the com­ing months,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed yes­ter­day, de­tail­ing what a UNC gov­ern­ment would do.

Re­in­forc­ing the po­si­tion she gave on Mon­day, she de­clared. “Tri­nis first” and warned delin­quent Venezue­lans to “go back home” if they couldn’t be­have in T&T.

“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 said.

“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 TTPS 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.”

She added, “Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens have been tremen­dous­ly gen­er­ous in ac­cept­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants over the last few years. They have been ac­cept­ed in our schools, giv­en free health care, ben­e­fit from sub­sidised wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty and fu­els, are al­lowed to open busi­ness­es, and use all pub­lic ameni­ties that are paid for by the tax­pay­ers of this coun­try.

“These mi­grants pay no tax­es on in­come, no na­tion­al in­sur­ance, no health sur­charge and there­fore out-com­pete lo­cals for jobs as em­ploy­ers seek to cut labour costs. The UNC has re­peat­ed­ly called for a clear mi­grant pol­i­cy to be im­ple­ment­ed by the State, but none has been ar­tic­u­lat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to date.

“Every day for the last year, there were re­ports of vi­o­lent crimes be­ing com­mit­ted by il­le­gal Venezue­lan mi­grants against our cit­i­zens. Four days ago, 69-year-old pen­sion­er Win­ston Thomas, a res­i­dent of my con­stituen­cy of Siparia, was found dead in his car along the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way. He was vi­o­lent­ly at­tacked by Span­ish-speak­ing in­trud­ers in his home, beat­en, robbed, kid­napped, and mur­dered.

“Wit­ness­es re­port­ed that they heard Mr Thomas be­ing beat­en and saw his at­tack­ers forc­ing him in­to the back seat of his car. Mr Thomas’ hands were tied be­hind his back, and he was stabbed in his head by Span­ish-speak­ing sus­pects.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “With the killing of Mr Thomas, I say enough is enough; the time has come to take ac­tion against Venezue­lan mi­grants who are com­mit­ting crimes dai­ly against our cit­i­zens. The Venezue­lan mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty must al­so take ac­tion and as­sist the TTPS in root­ing out vi­o­lent Venezue­lan crim­i­nals who are ter­ror­is­ing our cit­i­zens.

“The well-be­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens must al­ways come first, our na­tion’s gen­eros­i­ty is now be­ing ex­ploit­ed and our cit­i­zens ter­rorised. The na­tion is al­ready be­sieged by vi­o­lent lo­cal gangs.”