Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sought to as­sure the pub­lic that the re­cent­ly an­nounced mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise will ap­ply on­ly to in­di­vid­u­als al­ready ar­rest­ed for crim­i­nal of­fences and cur­rent­ly held in the na­tion’s pris­ons or de­ten­tion cen­tres.

On Mon­day, a memo from the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty to the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer stat­ed that, “The Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has in­struct­ed that all il­le­gal im­mi­grants de­tained are to be held at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre un­til repa­tri­a­tion. They are not to be placed on Or­ders of Su­per­vi­sion, as con­sid­er­a­tion is cur­rent­ly be­ing giv­en to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise for il­le­gal im­mi­grants. This pol­i­cy takes im­me­di­ate ef­fect and shall re­main in force un­til fur­ther in­struc­tions are is­sued by the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter.”

Guardian Me­dia sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter on the pro­posed “mass de­por­ta­tion ex­er­cise for il­le­gal im­mi­grants.” The Prime Min­is­ter was asked whether the ini­tia­tive would mir­ror the Unit­ed States’ im­mi­gra­tion crack­downs car­ried out by Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) agents. Guardian Me­dia al­so in­quired whether this could in­volve a broad law en­force­ment op­er­a­tion lo­cal­ly, where of­fi­cers might stop in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing chil­dren, to de­mand proof of le­gal sta­tus.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “This is on­ly for il­le­gal im­mi­grants who have com­mit­ted crim­i­nal of­fences. Of any na­tion­al­i­ty.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “This is for peo­ple de­tained in the jails or de­ten­tion cen­tres who have been ar­rest­ed for crimes. Noth­ing to do with kids.”

The memo from the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter comes less than two months af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised to de­port 200 il­le­gal Venezue­lan mi­grants.

Last month, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment of stalling the repa­tri­a­tion of around 200 Venezue­lan na­tion­als de­tained for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in T&T.

Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter to­day what will hap­pen with those 200 peo­ple, giv­en Venezuela’s fail­ure to co­op­er­ate.

“They are still un­co­op­er­a­tive. So, their peo­ple re­main de­tained,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed.

Guardian Me­dia al­so asked if her gov­ern­ment would start a fresh mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion process sim­i­lar to what was done un­der the Venezue­lan Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work (MRF), which was im­ple­ment­ed in June 2019. Suc­cess­ful reg­is­trants were grant­ed a Reg­is­tra­tion Card and a Min­is­ter’s Per­mit of­fer­ing a work per­mit ex­emp­tion for one year. De­fence Min­is­ter in a post cab­i­net news con­fer­ence in June had said that was part of the gov­ern­ment’s plan. How­ev­er, she did not re­spond to that ques­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pre­vi­ous­ly said her gov­ern­ment is fi­nal­is­ing a mi­grant pol­i­cy that will not in­volve mass de­por­ta­tions but will tar­get in­di­vid­u­als with crim­i­nal records. She has blamed the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion for fail­ing to dis­tin­guish be­tween le­git­i­mate refugees and those en­gaged in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

She has em­pha­sised that the up­com­ing pol­i­cy will be fair, with de­por­ta­tions lim­it­ed to mi­grants con­vict­ed of crimes, while oth­ers will be as­sessed on a case-by-case ba­sis.