Archbishop: Integrate refugees, slow influx

ARCHBISHOP Jason Gordon says the rate of influx of refugees needs to be slowed but those already in the country should be integrated.

He was speaking with the media Thursday night at An Evening with the Archbishop: An end-of-year celebration of the Catholic News 125th Anniversary held at Archbishop's House, Port of Spain.

He said if the refugees are not integrated they will be left to the informal and illegal economy, to be in trouble and create a problem in the future for the country. He added, however, if integrated into the formal economy and become citizens in this era or the next generation it will be an incredible boon to the country and part of TT's development.

Gordon said refugees throughout the world have been a real challenge to every nation including Germany, England, France and US.

"And we are in the wake of an American thinking refugees and building walls. That has really kind of dominated the airways over here and it has set a kind of perspective of what the response ought to be. But that's not the Christian response. Building a wall keeps people on one side and other people or another side. Building a bridge allows people to meet and allows other things to happen."

He pointed in the 1800s there was an influx of Venezuelans into TT when the country had a crisis and by 1865 there was a flourishing cocoa industry because Venezuelans brought cocoa "and helped us through a stage of our own evolution as a nation."

"So we are a nation that is built on immigrants by choice, by force by all kinds of things over a very long history."