Gail Alexan­der

No of­fi­cial re­quest from Venezuela for a meet­ing with Gov­ern­ment was re­ceived by the For­eign Af­fairs Min­istry up to yes­ter­day evening.

This was con­firmed by For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne yes­ter­day.

Venezuela’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Jorge Ar­reaza had on Wednes­day is­sued word that he had been in­struct­ed by Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro to con­vene a meet­ing with T&T of­fi­cials.

Ar­reaza made the an­nounce­ment via a tweet.

This fol­lowed T&T’s moves to send back to Venezuela a boat­load of il­le­gal mi­grants com­pris­ing 16 mi­nors and 11 adults.

Ar­reaza had added that Venezuela was seek­ing to con­vened the meet­ing to re­view is­sues of se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man mo­bil­i­ty, the fight against crime and drug traf­fick­ing.

He said it would be the sec­ond such meet­ing in four months.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in charge of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Symon de No­bri­ga al­so had no in­for­ma­tion on it.

The Venezue­lan Em­bassy in T&T didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day.

Ce­dros Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that even af­ter the re­cent land­ing of the il­le­gal Venezue­lans, T&T fish­er­men are still re­port­ing see­ing Venezue­lan ves­sels’ ‘lurk­ing’ around the T&T coast­line.

“It’s a con­tin­u­ous oc­cur­rence. Those boats seem to try to time their dash in­to T&T dur­ing the time when Coast Guard ves­sels change crews. That might take about an hour or so and it’s a mat­ter of min­utes to cov­er the sev­en miles be­tween Venezuela to T&T with a good boat.”

Guardian Me­dia sent queries to Coast Guard PRO Lt Kadi­ja Lamy on whether any more Venezue­lan ves­sels have been seen since the last boat land­ed, whether Coast Guard has in­deed in­creased coastal pa­trols and if any in­no­va­tions - like drones - are be­ing em­ployed. Lamy did not re­spond.

Mean­while, UNC MP Rod­ney Charles called on Gov­ern­ment to have a “se­ri­ous pol­i­cy” to lock down T&T bor­ders.

“Be­cause those de­port­ed re­turned al­most im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“As it stands we don’t even know the num­ber of Venezue­lans in T&T. We’re not aware of how many Venezue­lan chil­dren are born here and there­fore en­ti­tled to all rights of cit­i­zen­ship. Will we keep their chil­dren born here but de­port their par­ents? We haven’t giv­en thought to what will hap­pen af­ter the reg­is­tra­tion process runs its course nor have we pre­pared schools for teach­ing bi-lin­gual pupils.”

Charles re­newed UNC’s calls for a refugee pol­i­cy “which is hu­mane, con­sen­su­al­ly-de­vel­oped, ac­knowl­edges our in­ter­na­tion­al treaty oblig­a­tions and the skills gaps in our coun­try, is con­sis­tent with our laws and glob­al best prac­tices, and most im­por­tant­ly rec­og­nizes the lim­its of our ab­sorp­tive ca­pac­i­ty.”

“This must be the first or­der of busi­ness for the re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on For­eign Af­fairs. We can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate by vaps on this im­por­tant mat­ter.

“Lo­cal NGOs and stake­hold­ers like the Coast Guard, TTPS, Im­mi­gra­tion, Par­lia­ment and cit­i­zens will be in no doubt as to what’s re­quired of them in a va­ri­ety of sit­u­a­tions such as arose re­cent­ly with the de­por­ta­tion of Venezue­lans in­clud­ing chil­dren and a four-month-old.

“As it stands our refugee pol­i­cy is de­vel­oped on the fly, seem­ing­ly by the Prime Min­is­ter tak­ing his own coun­sel, with­out full ven­ti­la­tion of the is­sues, and in re­ac­tion to on­go­ing events,” he said call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to have crit­i­cal hard da­ta to in­form this pol­i­cy.