V’zuelans called to register

Stuart Young
Stuart Young

National Security Minister Stuart Young is urging all Venezuelan nationals living in TT to register for the Migrant Framework Policy by June 14 in order to take advantage of everything the policy has to offer.

Young made the announcement during yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing and said immigrants living both legally and illegally would be eligible to apply which he said should take two weeks, beginning on May 31. Outside of that period, he said, any additional Venezuelans coming to TT would be subject to the same conditions as before.

The policy which would qualify immigrants the opportunity to work and receive basic health care in TT, is aimed at gauging the number of Venezuelans living locally and also extend humanitarian support to those escaping the crisis in their homeland.

“I want to make it abundantly clear, whether Venezuelans are here legally or illegally, once they come into the window of that two-week period, they will derive the opportunity to get a registration card, they will have a work permit exemption allowing them to work for a year,” he said those registering will be supervised by officers for six months and would be given a six month extension if their results in the workplace were favourable.

He said Venezuelans would be given the opportunity to register at any of the five centres located at Port of Spain, Arima, San Fernando, Cedros and Scarborough, between the hours of 7 am to 7 pm every day for the two-week period.

Despite those provisions, Young also said Cabinet agreed there would be no guarantee to education, training or social services for registrants.

“Those tiers of services are provided for citizens of TT and in some cases the residents in TT. It is well known that our education system is bursting at the seam, so our first priority has to provide education to nationals and locals.

“What we have seen is certain private groups offering those services.”

Responding to concerns of safety and security, Young said the registration card given to nationals should not be seen as a “get out jail free” card and said they were still expected to be held to the same laws as nationals.

“If anyone commits any criminal act in TT, that registration card is not going to help them, they will be arrested charged and incarcerated.

As I say we don’t know with any degree of certainty who these Venezuelans are. We will be asking Interpol to provide us with a list of who is on a watch list or who has been red flagged. If you (Venezuelans) provide us with lies or false information, we have the right to deport you, it squashes the whole process.”

He also said while registrants would not be required to pay National Insurance, it was yet to be determined if they would be eligible to pay the Board of Inland Revenue.

Young also urged all Venezuelans intending to come to TT, to use only the legal ports of entry.

Speaking on the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with US Ambassador Joseph Mondello, Young described the meeting as “very positive” and said despite having different stances on the situation in Venezuela, the ties betweeen both TT and the US were still strong and prosperous.

“It was very open discussion, what came out very clearly from both sides was there is a lot of mutual respect in relationships there are times where we agree to disagree but we continue to work very closely together with the US, who is still a close ally to us in respect to law enforcement and trade.”

He said the Government continued to recognise Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate President of Venezuela and prefered not to intervene in that country’s affairs.

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