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Sunday, July 6, 2025

UNHCR closure to affect 25,000 asylum seekers

... 39 T&T employees also on breadline

by

15 days ago
20250621

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With an es­ti­mat­ed 122 mil­lion refugees glob­al­ly, and US$26 mil­lion be­ing pumped to help asy­lum seek­ers and refugees in T&T, the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) is shut­ting its doors in Au­gust, im­pact­ing 39 em­ploy­ees and 25,000 asy­lum seek­ers.

The de­ci­sion comes as the UN­HCR faces glob­al fund­ing is­sues and is now seek­ing to forge part­ner­ships in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to help refugees and asy­lum seek­ers.

Re­spond­ing to the de­vel­op­ments, co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­main Mi­grant Sup­port Group (LARMS) Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine said the clo­sure of the UN­HCR will deep­en the mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of mi­grant pop­u­la­tions who de­pend on the or­gan­i­sa­tion for refugee sta­tus. She warned that with ris­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty in Venezuela and mass de­por­ta­tions from the Unit­ed States un­der the Don­ald Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, T&T could soon see a new wave of asy­lum seek­ers, refugees and mi­grants.

Say­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­spons­es need to be treat­ed as glob­al pri­or­i­ties, Ram­nar­ine said, “It’s a sad thing, ac­tu­al­ly, that of­fices that have to deal with mi­grants are be­ing closed... I would put the is­sue of asy­lum and refugee seek­ers as a glob­al prob­lem, right up there with glob­al warm­ing and cli­mate change.”

She not­ed that LARMS was mind­ful of fund­ing con­straints and had been prepar­ing for such cuts for more than a year.

Ram­nar­ine, who has worked with mi­grants in south­ern Trinidad, said many of them nev­er tru­ly ac­cessed sup­port from the UN­HCR.

“Ba­si­cal­ly, the UN­HCR was an­oth­er of­fice bu­reau­cra­cy lo­cat­ed in the north that was not al­ways ac­ces­si­ble to many,” she said.

“Peo­ple liv­ing in the deep south used to tell me that it used to cost them a lot of trans­porta­tion to go up to the UN­HCR to seek help, some­times $400 a day they would spend in trans­port, with very lit­tle re­sults to show for it.”

She added that while “one or two of them have ben­e­fit­ed in terms of surg­eries, med­ical, and they said they got sig­nif­i­cant help,” most found the sys­tem dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate and un­re­spon­sive to their re­al needs.

“We had hot­lines so mi­grants could ac­cess in­for­ma­tion, but these things nev­er worked. It’s hard to get on to peo­ple,” she said.

How­ev­er, she said UN­HCR’s de­par­ture un­der­scores a wider is­sue of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“I hope that new agen­cies ear­marked to sup­plant the UN­HCR will be more ac­ces­si­ble to mi­grants,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She added: “I feel there will be a resur­gence giv­en what is hap­pen­ing in Venezuela now and giv­en what is in US with mass de­por­ta­tions.

“We will again feel the pres­sures of mi­grants, refugees and asy­lum seek­ers. We have a se­ri­ous prob­lem and we ac­tu­al­ly see how much these agen­cies can do.”

Mean­while, Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al mi­grants who had re­ceived as­sis­tance from the UN­HCR.

Mi­grant Cathe­ri­na Valder­ry said through the UN­HCR and Liv­ing Wa­ters Com­mu­ni­ty, her chil­dren re­ceived ac­cess to on­line class­es at a child­care cen­tre.

“They helped me with food and ed­u­ca­tion. I had no prob­lem with them,” Valder­ry said.

In the Cedrios area, mi­grant Maria Con­quina said they re­ceived so­lar lights and blan­kets from the UN­HCR.

“We had a tank for wa­ter and help with food,” Con­quina added.

Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh re­vealed that the UN­HCR al­so helped dozens of mi­grants with ed­u­ca­tion, on­line school­ing with de­vices, food ham­pers, as well as as­sis­tance in reg­is­ter­ing them.

How­ev­er, a source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said prob­lems at the UN­HCR start­ed in De­cem­ber 2023, when the UN­HCR end­ed

its pro­gramme agree­ment with Liv­ing Wa­ters and di­vert­ed its funds to the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights (CCHR).

The source crit­i­cised the UN­HCR’s role in im­mi­gra­tion mat­ters.

“De­por­ta­tion or­ders is­sued against un­doc­u­ment­ed per­sons, in­clud­ing those con­vict­ed of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences, were of­ten ob­struct­ed by last-minute claims to refugee sta­tus,” the source said.

“The fund­ing tar­get­ed Venezue­lan mi­grants, caus­ing a clear dis­par­i­ty and un­fair dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources to the oth­er 34 coun­tries from which mi­grants came and resided,” the source added.

2 crit­i­cal of­fi­cers to re­main in PoS

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, com­mu­ni­ca­tions as­so­ciate at the UN Refugee Agency Kali­fa Clyne said about 39 UN­HCR staff and 25,000 asy­lum seek­ers will be di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the clo­sure of the UN­HCR of­fice in Port-of-Spain in Au­gust due to glob­al fund­ing con­straints.

While most lo­cal po­si­tions will be dis­con­tin­ued, Clyne said two crit­i­cal roles will re­main, sup­port­ed by staff out­post from the Pana­ma Mul­ti Coun­try Of­fice.

Asked how much fund­ing was giv­en to T&T, Clyne re­vealed that be­tween 2020 and 2024, UN­HCR re­ceived and im­ple­ment­ed US$26 mil­lion in projects in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This in­clud­ed part­ner­ships that pro­vid­ed es­sen­tial ser­vices—such as asy­lum reg­is­tra­tion, le­gal as­sis­tance, and psy­choso­cial sup­port—to refugees and asy­lum seek­ers.

Clyne said the UN­HCR will “work close­ly with na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties and lo­cal part­ners to en­sure that the rights of refugees and asy­lum-seek­ers are up­held” even af­ter the of­fice clo­sure on Au­gust 31.

To ad­dress fu­ture fund­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, she said the UN­HCR was “ac­tive­ly di­ver­si­fy­ing its fund­ing base” by forg­ing new part­ner­ships with pri­vate sec­tor and phil­an­thropic foun­da­tions, and col­lab­o­rat­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to in­te­grate refugee needs in­to broad­er de­vel­op­men­tal agen­das.”

De­spite these ef­forts, Clyne said the glob­al fund­ing en­vi­ron­ment re­mains tight. Not­ed that there are over 122 mil­lion refugees glob­al­ly, she said, “This high­lights the ur­gent need for more pre­dictable, long-term sup­port and greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty-shar­ing across the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty,” she added.

IOM: Fund­ing is­sues im­pact­ing ef­forts

Mean­while, in a state­ment, the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­grants (IOM), said: “The re­duc­tion in US fund­ing and ter­mi­na­tion of some for­eign as­sis­tance pro­grammes are im­pact­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an ef­forts in Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly as­sis­tance for sup­port­ing the needs of vul­ner­a­ble mi­grants, in­clud­ing crit­i­cal ser­vices such as emer­gency di­rect as­sis­tance, psy­choso­cial sup­port, shel­ter as­sis­tance, liveli­hood pro­gram­ming and re­set­tle­ment as­sis­tance.”

The IOM not­ed: “We con­tin­ue to as­sess the full im­pact in co­or­di­na­tion with part­ners and re­main com­mit­ted to de­liv­er­ing tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, and sup­port for sus­tain­able mi­gra­tion man­age­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

UN Of­fice of the Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor re­sponds

Mean­while, the Unit­ed Na­tions Of­fice of the Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor al­so is­sued a re­sponse say­ing: “Un­der the lead­er­ship of the UN Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor, the UN Coun­try Team com­pris­ing of 23 res­i­dent and non-res­i­dent agen­cies, will con­tin­ue col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and a wide cross-sec­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al, re­gion­al and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners.”

It added: “The UN sys­tem, along­side the re­duced pres­ence of UN­HCR, will work close­ly with na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties and lo­cal part­ners to en­sure that the rights of refugees and asy­lum-seek­ers are up­held.”

The UN Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor Of­fice al­so stat­ed that it will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al asy­lum sys­tem, em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and T&T’s com­mit­ment to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law.


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