Legal officer: TT lacks laws on asylum seekers, refugees

OWING to the lack of legislation in TT on asylum seekers and refugees, they face many problems, and stakeholders, including the immigration division, have difficulties in solving them, said a senior legal officer.

Gina Maharaj of the Ministry for Migrants and Refugees at the Living Water Community (LWC), said: "The ideal solution for everybody is to have legislation in place that are considerate of national security interest at the same time protection-sensitive and humanitarian."

Maharaj spoke at a webinar on Wednesday on the Protection of Refugees and Migrants in TT: Exploring Legal Frameworks, Human Rights and Justice. The faculty of law at UWI in St Augustine hosted it.

She referred to the Immigration Ac, saying it is very old (1969) and has no mention of "asylum" or "refugee."

Maharaj said since September 2017,the  LWC had got 1,800 reports of detentions, mostly of Venezuelans. Some were for verification of identities, pending deportation, and other issues such as being involved in criminal activities.

The asylum application starts at the LWC and continues at the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

"We aim to, as best as possible, mitigate the protection risk of beneficiaries. This could be as simple as telling them to go to their order of supervision appointment, to do not beach it, or doing a plea of mitigation in court on their behalf," she said.

Many Venezuelans are not aware of TT’s laws and cannot speak English. Locals, she said, often exploit them.

"In Venezuela, they do not have the same concept of the immigration process as TT. They are not familiar with TT’s system because Venezuela has always been open to migration," Maharaj said.

"Many of them are unaware they are breaking laws here."

Like immigration staff, the staff at LWC explain these differences to the Venezuelans.

She highlighted issues affecting refugees such as eviction, discrimination detention, deportation, labour exploitation, trafficking, and the language barrier.

One of the most significant issues relates to landlord and tenants. Through LWC’s Know Your Rights campaign, Venezuelans get information about their rights, such as the legal way of eviction. LWC has a robust case management team, including social workers and a bilingual case management team, Maharaj said.

Other representatives from LWC at the webinar included Marise Ayoung, Ganesh Rampersad and Rochelle Nakhid. Anyone who wishes to apply for asylum can call/WhatsApp the LWC on Mondays-Fridays from 8 am-4 pm at 281-8737.