Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal be­lieves Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds owes US Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump and the US Gov­ern­ment an apol­o­gy.

Mooni­lal said he was shocked by Hinds’ state­ments that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments on de­port­ing il­le­gal im­mi­grants were “a reck­less out­burst,” aimed to play pol­i­tics and mim­ic Trump.

On Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned Venezue­lan mi­grants to be­have or be de­port­ed. She ex­pressed con­cern that il­le­gal Venezue­lan mi­grants were al­leged­ly com­mit­ting crimes against lo­cals. She al­so called for a clear mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy from the State.

Ques­tioned by re­porters at his Debe con­stituen­cy of­fice on the is­sue, Mooni­lal said while Hinds’ com­ments may have been aimed at the Op­po­si­tion Leader, he was al­so dis­re­spect­ing a for­eign head of gov­ern­ment. “If he said that it’s fright­en­ing, it’s reck­less for him to be speak­ing about an in­com­ing pres­i­dent and mak­ing ref­er­ence to Mr Trump’s pol­i­tics and Mr Trump’s char­ac­ter and per­son­al­i­ty and views. I think the coun­try needs to recog­nise Mr Hinds should apol­o­gise to the Unit­ed States ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert al­so re­spond­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments. Browne, in a post on X, had said the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had con­tin­u­ous­ly been de­port­ing Venezue­lan na­tion­als who break the laws of T&T.

In re­sponse to his post, Im­bert stat­ed, “Mad­ness. She pre­vi­ous­ly de­mand­ed that we ac­cept all of them carte blanche with­out ques­tion. Now, all of a sud­den, she wants to de­port them en masse?”

Re­spond­ing to the is­sue re­gard­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants, Mooni­lal said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ments re­flect­ed what the av­er­age cit­i­zen be­lieved to be the truth, and while it might not be an at­trac­tive or con­ve­nient truth, one can­not hide from the truth.

“Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is re­al­ly call­ing for two things: a pol­i­cy on mi­grants, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Venezuela and re­lat­ed ar­eas in the Caribbean, and she is re­al­ly say­ing up­hold the law,” he added.

Mooni­lal said there was a cri­sis in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties where mi­grants from Venezuela and oth­er places have been com­mit­ting crimes, in­clud­ing home in­va­sions and rob­beries.

“It has come so bad that the Venezue­lans are com­ing here il­le­gal­ly and then go­ing back for va­ca­tion and com­ing back il­le­gal­ly ... We need to have a com­pre­hen­sive overview of that and im­ple­ment law and pol­i­cy to stop that,” he said.