?In the ar­ti­cle "Im­mi­gra­tion needs a purge," on June 28, Mr Richard Ra­moutar claimed that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was not work­ing to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. He al­so lashed out against the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion on a num­ber of is­sues such as out­dat­ed leg­is­la­tion and cor­rupt prac­tices. The Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion views Mr Ra­moutar's ar­gu­ments as be­ing flawed, mis­lead­ing and mis­chie­vous in var­i­ous ar­eas.

First­ly, Mr Ra­moutar stat­ed that the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Sen Mar­tin Joseph ad­mit­ted that there is ev­i­dence of hu­man traf­fick­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go. But what he failed to add was that the min­is­ter has made it clear that while there is ev­i­dence to sug­gest that peo­ple are be­ing traf­ficked in­to the coun­try, there is no ev­i­dence to sup­port re­ports of peo­ple be­ing traf­ficked out of the coun­try.

As to his ref­er­ence about Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing clas­si­fied as Tier 2 by the US De­part­ment of State, by omis­sion of in­for­ma­tion, Mr Ra­moutar por­trayed T&T's Tier 2 sta­tus as neg­a­tive. Coun­tries as­sessed as not ful­ly com­ply­ing with the min­i­mum stan­dards, but mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts to meet those min­i­mum stan­dards are clas­si­fied as Tier 2. No­tably, this ref­er­ence was omit­ted from the ar­ti­cle.

Fur­ther to this point, the Tier 2 Watch list con­sists of Tier 2 coun­tries that are de­ter­mined:

�2 Not to have made "in­creas­ing ef­forts" to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing over the past year;

�2 To be mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts based on com­mit­ments of an­ti-traf­fick­ing re­forms over the next year;

�2 To have a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of traf­fick­ing vic­tims or a sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creas­ing vic­tim pop­u­la­tion.

The ar­ti­cle in­di­cat­ed that the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was not as pru­dent and proac­tive as it should have been so as to ben­e­fit from the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion's (IOM) pres­ence in T&T. This is ab­solute­ly un­true.

The IOM was in­vit­ed to T&T by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to as­sist in strength­en­ing its tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty and mi­gra­tion man­age­ment.

In June 2006, Cab­i­net ap­proved the Tech­ni­cal Co-op­er­a­tion Plan, en­ti­tled Strength­en­ing Tech­ni­cal Ca­pac­i­ty (STC) in T&T to en­hance Mi­gra­tion Man­age­ment and Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

The project cen­tred around four main ar­eas:

�2 Up­grad­ing of Mi­gra­tion Se­cu­ri­ty Tech­nol­o­gy: to en­sure that Im­mi­gra­tion, Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials pos­sess ad­e­quate bor­der and mi­gra­tion tech­nol­o­gy to prop­er­ly and ex­pe­di­tious­ly man­age in­com­ing and out­go­ing pas­sen­ger flows at points of en­try;

�2 Strength­en­ing In­sti­tu­tion­al and Hu­man Re­source Ca­pac­i­ty: es­tab­lish­ment and in­sti­tu­tion­al­i­sa­tion of a re­cur­rent in-ser­vice train­ing regime in ar­eas of mi­gra­tion, visa and pass­port is­suance, and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment;

�2 Up­dat­ing Le­gal and Reg­u­la­to­ry Frame­work: con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of all leg­is­la­tion rel­e­vant to im­mi­gra­tion;

�2 En­hanc­ing Re­gion­al El­e­ments/Co-op­er­a­tion: con­tin­gency plan­ning for mass mi­gra­to­ry flows.

The STC project team worked in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty through an ad­vi­so­ry mech­a­nism, which took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the tech­ni­cal needs of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and re­lat­ed agen­cies, as well as the wider mi­gra­tion man­age­ment needs of the Gov­ern­ment. The two-year project spon­sored by the US De­part­ment of State came to an end in Oc­to­ber 2008 and the Gov­ern­ment has since re­tained the Of­fice of the IOM at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, fund­ed by the Min­istry.

The terms of ref­er­ence of the Of­fice in­clude:

The im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Counter-traf­fick­ing pro­gramme in con­junc­tion with the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) de­signed to achieve two ob­jec­tives:

�2 As­sist vic­tims of traf­fick­ing through pre­ven­tion and pro­tec­tion ef­forts.

�2 Crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of hu­man traf­fick­ing through pros­e­cu­tion ef­forts.

For the pur­pose of pre­ven­tion and pro­tec­tion an in­for­mal work­ing group would be es­tab­lished. This group will even­tu­al­ly be for­malised in­to a mul­ti-agency task force that would help to de­vel­op and over­see a medi­um-to-long-term plan of ac­tion.

The Task Force will be re­spon­si­ble for the fol­low­ing:

�2 Im­ple­ment­ing and sys­tem­a­tis­ing a re­fer­ral process to iden­ti­fy and as­sist vic­tims.

�2 Es­tab­lish­ing a hot­line to field calls per­tain­ing to hu­man traf­fick­ing.

�2 Con­duct­ing a na­tion-wide in­for­ma­tion cam­paign, us­ing IOM's ma­te­r­i­al that fea­tures the hot­line num­ber.

Train­ing:

�2 As­sis­tance in the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of pro­grammes for the train­ing of Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers in ar­eas such as doc­u­ment ex­am­i­na­tion, in­tel­li­gence pro­fil­ing, cus­tomer ser­vice, etc.

�2 As­sis­tance in the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of pro­grammes for po­lice of­fi­cers and oth­er of­fi­cials of the ju­di­cial and le­gal ser­vices on the is­sue of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

Es­tab­lish­ment of a da­ta shar­ing mech­a­nism:

�2 Li­ai­son with the rel­e­vant agen­cies with­in the Gov­ern­ment to de­ter­mine the cur­rent prac­tices re­lat­ed to the col­lec­tion of mi­gra­tion da­ta.

�2 As­sess­ment of the cur­rent hu­man re­source and in­fra­struc­ture that has an im­pact up­on the col­lec­tion of mi­gra­tion da­ta.

n En­hanc­ing re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion shar­ing through this mech­a­nism.

�2 As­sis­tance via tech­ni­cal ad­vice with im­ple­ment­ing ap­pro­pri­ate mech­a­nisms for the ef­fi­cient record­ing of move­ment of peo­ple across the bor­ders of Trinidad and To­ba­go

Mi­grants with­out leave to stay:

�2 Pro­vi­sion of as­sis­tance to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and NGOs, in ex­plor­ing ap­pro­pri­ate struc­tures for the shel­ter of mi­grants and refugees

�2 Li­ai­son with gov­ern­men­tal, in­ter-gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions in un­der­tak­ing pro­grammes to fa­cil­i­tate vol­un­tary re­turns and rein­te­gra­tion of mi­grants with­out leave to stay.

Mr Ra­moutar's ar­ti­cle crit­i­cis­es the Im­mi­gra­tion Act as be­ing ir­rel­e­vant and thus, in need of re­vi­sion. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty recog­nis­es the need for a re­view of the pack­age of Im­mi­gra­tion leg­is­la­tion and the need for im­ple­men­ta­tion of ef­fec­tive mea­sures that will strength­en bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and mi­gra­tion man­age­ment. With this in mind, much as­sis­tance has been re­ceived through part­ner­ship with the IOM.

The IOM as­sist­ed the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion in "strength­en­ing the leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work". In seek­ing to meet this oblig­a­tion, the IOM as­sist­ed the Gov­ern­ment in re­view­ing the Im­mi­gra­tion Act (and Reg­u­la­tions), 1969, to mod­ernise its com­pli­ance. The IOM re­cruit­ed an in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal con­sul­tant, Iu­lian Cir­co, to spend one month in T&T with this ob­jec­tive in mind.

His du­ties in­clud­ed:

�2 The col­lec­tion of rel­e­vant le­gal in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to mi­gra­tion process and the con­trol and man­age­ment of ir­reg­u­lar mi­gra­tion

�2 The re­view of cur­rent le­gal pro­vi­sions and pro­ce­dures at bor­ders and oth­er en­try points.

�2 As­sist­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies in con­duct­ing a re­view of their mi­gra­tion laws and reg­u­la­tions and con­tribut­ing to the de­vel­op­ment of draft bills and amend­ments.

From that re­view, a num­ber of rec­om­men­da­tions were made as it per­tains to the fol­low­ing:

�2 En­try and ad­mis­sion.

�2 Stay and res­i­dence.

�2 Ex­pul­sion and de­ten­tion.

�2 Il­le­gal mi­gra­tion and mi­gra­tion re­lat­ed crime.

The min­istry has this re­port in its pos­ses­sion and will use this as well as ad­vice from the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da in its prepa­ra­tion of re­vised leg­is­la­tion. A draft im­mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy has been sent to Cana­da for re­view. Changes al­ready have been made in the is­suance of visas and work per­mits. Amend­ments to Im­mi­gra­tion leg­is­la­tion to in­cor­po­rate the evolv­ing facets and in­stru­ments of Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) with its con­gru­ent free move­ment of peo­ple, goods and skills have been un­der­tak­en.

In essence, the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is be­ing fur­ther en­hanced and im­mi­gra­tion poli­cies and mi­gra­tion man­age­ment amend­ed. Sig­nif­i­cant progress has been made in this re­gard. The work al­ready con­duct­ed, cou­pled with plans to be im­ple­ment­ed in the near fu­ture, will great­ly con­tribute to strength­en­ing and en­hanc­ing the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of T&T. Rel­a­tive to the in­fer­ence of cor­rup­tion with­in the Di­vi­sion, the Di­vi­sion has long in­sti­tut­ed mea­sures to iden­ti­fy and in­ves­ti­gate al­le­ga­tions of malfea­sance. In the past, when breach­es were iden­ti­fied and in­ves­ti­gat­ed, Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cers were tak­en be­fore the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion for the de­ter­mi­na­tion of these cas­es.

The Di­vi­sion's un­der­ly­ing phi­los­o­phy is an ab­solute re­jec­tion of cor­rup­tion. Any ac­tiv­i­ty rel­a­tive to a crime is re­port­ed to the Po­lice for in­quiry and pros­e­cu­tion, if war­rant­ed. With the in­tro­duc­tion of the is­suance of ma­chine read­able pass­ports, the so­lu­tion is a mod­u­lar one. In­her­ent in its de­sign is a trail of each ac­tiv­i­ty, there­by deny­ing any one per­son the abil­i­ty to is­sue a pass­port. his may have been pos­si­ble in the pre­vi­ous man­u­al sys­tem. The over­all thrust of new so­lu­tions is en­sur­ing the is­suance of the right doc­u­ment to the right per­son. In so do­ing, it is im­per­a­tive that of­fi­cers ad­here to the guide­lines for ro­bust­ness and in­tegri­ty as out­lined in the stan­dards stip­u­lat­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (ICAO).

To date, there has been no re­port of breach­es. More­over, the im­ple­men­ta­tion of In­te­grat­ed Bor­der Man­age­ment Sys­tem al­lows for record­ing of all ar­rivals and de­par­tures of crews and pas­sen­gers, the ex­ten­sions and vari­a­tions of cer­tifi­cates. This is in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices for bor­der safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. It must be un­der­scored that all ac­tiv­i­ties are record­ed elec­tron­i­cal­ly on the sys­tem in re­al time. Con­se­quent­ly, any­one who is found with an en­dorse­ment in his or her pass­port that can­not be ver­i­fied is li­able to fur­ther in­quiry. The im­pe­tus is to en­sure com­pli­ance.�The Min­istry hopes that this re­sponse ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress­es the is­sues raised by Mr Ra­moutar.

�2 Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty