Migration policy progress? Negativo

REPORTS that scores of Venezuelans, including 25 children, were detained, then surreptitiously deported to Venezuela on Saturday suggest little has changed in relation to the State’s policies.

State officials have been slow to clarify the circumstances in relation to what reportedly occurred at the Chaguaramas heliport.

But it seems little has been learned from a series of rulings by the local Supreme Court over prior deportations and condemnation from international agencies, as well as the public outcry over the treatment meted out to migrants and asylum seekers by national security officials.

“There is no progress on the complaints of human rights violations against children and women,” said Yesenia Gonzalez, an activist for Venezuelans in TT, on Monday. She indicated there appeared to be – still – no suitable places in the country designated to take care of children caught up in law enforcement activity.

The Arima-based Hispanic Cultural Centre (La Casita/HCC) on Tuesday further suggested the deportation exercise, which is understood to have involved individuals who had been detained for some weeks, was done abruptly.

“The absence of any official statement or communication from the Government of TT to the deportees’ families resulted in families having numerous problems determining where or when to receive their loved ones,” said director of La Casita Andreina Briceno Brown.

Not only is this disappointing, but it potentially reeks of utter contempt by the authorities.

This is in stark contrast to the picture presented by Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds who, since assuming the position previously held by Stuart Young, has made it his business to meet with key stakeholders, even including RC Archbishop Jason Gordon.

But Mr Hinds’s unrepentant position on the issue of PCR test requirements for entry into this country was perhaps a clue to his wider approach to these policy issues. There is no onus on border officials to accept people with covid19 test results written in Spanish, he suggested earlier this month, when TT hockey players had been stranded in Chile, presumably even if such documents indicated the result was negativo, or negative.

The purported actions of the State over the weekend come as the world’s understanding of migration is itself rapidly changing.

The exodus of people fleeing Afghanistan and, closer to home, the thousands of Haitians making the perilous journey from their homeland to the US are forcing many to reassess how such individuals are treated. On Monday, White House officials were confronted with horrifying images showing mounted border patrol agents chasing terrified Haitians.

Locally, there is little to indicate what, if anything, has changed since last year, when dozens of children were put in pirogues and sent back to Venezuela over the choppy Gulf of Paria.

Like those individuals, the State's policies appear dangerously adrift.