The first batch of 16,523 reg­is­tra­tion cards to Venezue­lan na­tion­als was hand­ed out yes­ter­day, which would al­low the mi­grants to work in Trinidad and To­ba­go for six months, in the first in­stance.

In the com­ing days, Venezue­lans who reg­is­tered at the three cen­tres across the coun­try-Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do and To­ba­go - be­tween May 31 and June 14 will be able to col­lect their cards at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, Port-of-Spain, along with a let­ter out­lin­ing the terms and con­di­tions of the card in both Span­ish and Eng­lish.

Ap­pli­cants can al­so check the web­site of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to find when they can col­lect their cards.

The first dis­tri­b­u­tion took place to­day at the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of­fice, Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain, in the pres­ence of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews.

Young said Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion had to en­sure that the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed on the ap­pli­ca­tion forms was ac­cu­rate with In­ter­pol and oth­er in­tel­li­gence agen­cies, with some reg­is­trants fail­ing this “due dili­gence” ex­er­cise.

He promised that such in­di­vid­u­als will be dealt with by the law.

Young boast­ed that each card comes with se­cu­ri­ty fea­tures such a pho­to­graph, per­son­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber, se­cu­ri­ty seal, bar code, holo­grams and per­mit num­ber.

He said the ex­piry date on the cards is six months.

Hold­ers of the cards will be grant­ed an ad­di­tion­al six months once suc­cess­ful­ly as­sessed.

Gand­hi-An­drews said they know that in­di­vid­u­als will try to forge the cards.

“But there are safe­guards with­in this card that we can ver­i­fy at any giv­en point in time.”

She said the cards will not al­low Venezue­lans to vote, be­come a cit­i­zen or grant them per­ma­nent res­i­den­cy but for them to work legal­ly for six months in the first in­stance.

“If an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer or any law en­force­ment of­fi­cer asks you for it you must be able to pro­duce it on de­mand.”

If any card­hold­er breaks the law, Gand­hi-An­drews said the card will be can­celed and the in­di­vid­ual will be sub­ject to de­por­ta­tion.

Hold­ers of the card would still re­quire a visa to trav­el to and from Venezuela.