Venezuelans offered amnesty to register legally, opposition fears voter padding

[hydroep]

Young offers Venezuelans chance to work legally
Try amnesty option

Radhica De Silva

Venezue­lans flee­ing the cri­sis in their home­land will be giv­en an amnesty to reg­is­ter legal­ly and pos­si­bly work for one year in T&T with­out any in­volve­ment from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

So said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young as he dis­missed con­cerns of vote-rig­ging raised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tion, Young said the reg­is­tra­tion process will be­gin soon to doc­u­ment and reg­is­ter all Venezue­lan na­tion­als here, once it re­ceives clear­ance from Cab­i­net.

“This reg­is­tra­tion process is sim­ply to get the cor­rect da­ta of the num­ber of Venezue­lans who were stay­ing legal­ly and il­le­gal­ly in T&T. Right now you are hear­ing all sorts of ir­re­spon­si­ble fig­ures be­ing bandied about, so for the first time we will get the re­al fig­ures,” Young said.

He chas­tised Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her claims, say­ing, “The EBC is not go­ing to be play­ing any part of the ex­er­cise. It will be com­plete­ly dri­ven by the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. We will be de­sign­ing ID cards, not the EBC ID cards, so any at­tempt to try to con­fuse the two is very ir­re­spon­si­ble. I call it dog whistling.”

Asked to ex­plain fur­ther, Young said, “We will look at util­is­ing some­thing like your dri­vers’ per­mit and work­ing along with maybe the Min­istry of Works to see how they do the reg­is­tra­tion process. We will be giv­ing all Venezue­lans a pe­ri­od of time to come to cer­tain of­fices, places, all the var­i­ous op­tions. We want you to come and reg­is­ter and walk with your own ID, pass­ports and we will reg­is­ter every­one.”

He urged all Venezue­lans here to take ad­van­tage of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to reg­is­ter dur­ing this process.

“I want to say that all Venezue­lans who are here legal­ly or il­le­gal­ly, we are giv­ing you a time to reg­is­ter and there­after the law will ap­ply, “ Young said.

Asked whether the il­le­gal Venezue­lans will be per­se­cut­ed if they came for­ward, Young said no.

“This is amnesty. I want to know who is here and the on­ly way to do that is to lit­er­al­ly grant an amnesty, which the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty can do be­cause im­mi­gra­tion de­ci­sions are tak­en by the min­istry with­in the con­fines of the law.

“So yes, I am ask­ing them to come and reg­is­ter. It is not come and reg­is­ter and I will hold you and take you to the de­ten­tion cen­tre. No, come and reg­is­ter and this pro­vides a clean slate for every­one who comes and reg­is­ter. There­after we will ap­ply the law.”

Young could not say whether reg­is­tra­tion will give ac­cess to health and ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for Venezue­lans who are flee­ing their home­land in droves be­cause of the so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis.

“All of those things are to be de­cid­ed by Cab­i­net, es­pe­cial­ly the ed­u­ca­tion as­pect,” Young said.

For those Venezue­lans who fail to come for­ward, Young said they will feel the full brunt of the law.

“If you can’t pro­duce a reg­is­tra­tion card then it means you are il­le­gal and you can be sent to the de­ten­tion cen­tre and be de­port­ed. This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for you to get in­to the sys­tem and utilise the sys­tem of reg­is­ter­ing, know­ing that you are not go­ing to be pros­e­cut­ed,” he said.

He al­so said a col­lab­o­ra­tive crime ini­tia­tive was in place to pull back on il­le­gal en­try by im­mi­grants. This in­cludes more coastal pa­trols and land sur­veil­lance, Young said.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/young-offers-venezuelans-chance-to-work-legally-6.2.789758.ce4d1dcfb2

[Redman]

Extend the process into establishing what skills they have and are coming with.

Why not collect the data in order to create the database to enhance placement -REGIONALLY.

[vaiostation]

Hopefully by now we have about over a 100000.
More will most likely keep coming during and after the amnesty.
After these people flood the job market, medical system and education system,our economy will destabilize.
Food prices in the market will greatly increase.
So the cost of living will be too high for the common man.

When the year amnesty is over, who sending them back? Them vene not like we. We might take BS from the government and humble, not them. If imbert wanna see riot he go see.

Hopefully the 1% use the cheap labour and make some more billions and fly out after.

Note: Not just Venezuelans coming here, so the amount of illegal immigrants overall will be extremely high.

[pugboy]

so how they doing background criminal checks ?

[Slartibartfast]

An amnesty he say? Hmmmm. I'm not informed enough on this to make any intelligent input but this seems like a slippery slope to me.

So it's basically a free for all for Venes looking to come into Trinidad and Tobago in 2019. Once they reach they safe. Hmmmm.

[redmanjp]

hope the amnesty is for those already here and not those who will try to come in droves if they hear about the amnesty

[Redman]

Well they here.

What else can we do.

They gonna be working -legal or illegal.
We might as well get some structure in place.

Business now have 100,000 more possible customers.

Put the structure in now- and get Caricom support-to ease the process of migration up the islands.

Cuz the situation in Ven isnt going to end soon

[pj15]

hope the amnesty is for those already here and not those who will try to come in droves if they here about the amnesty

Good point. Any offer of an amnesty most go hand in hand with increased border surveillance or else the floodgates will really open!

[The_Honourable]

Don't mind an amnesty card and they work for a year. We all know that eventually there will be calls for an extension to that year. Then it will be 2 years, then 4... next thing you know some will jump up and say "well they working hard for all these years in the country, dey establish family and ting... we should give them citizenship."

[Moobs]

A large portion of the money Venezuelans make are sent back to their families in Venezuela.
I wonder how this will affect our foreign currency reserves in the long run?

[Slartibartfast]

Like I said. Slippery slope. Don't forget that Venezuela is also 20 times the population of Trinidad. They could destroy our economy long before we even impact theirs.

The idealist in me would like that everyone to have a chance at a good life and T&T is about every creed and race finding an equal place, but, this has the potential to make things worse for everyone while not helping at all in the long run.

But, IDK, cuz this is outside of my area of experience.

[Dizzy28]

Regularizing who already here can only be a good thing.
Regulating how much more that comes is another story.

[Kenjo]

Basically they not humbling themselves . They always ready to fight even killing themselves like the two on central the other day or demanding they could jump on plane to a next country and demand Trinidad take them back

[The_Honourable]

btw... if Maduro ask for that list, what you think Growlers will do?

[ProtonPowder]

btw... if Maduro ask for that list, what you think Growlers will do?

Doing something like this would invoke the wrath of the US and EU. Basically every country that backed Guaido would be extremely displeased.

Rowley not that stupid by a long shot. I hope.

[MG Man]

Basically they not humbling themselves . They always ready to fight even killing themselves like the two on central the other day or demanding they could jump on plane to a next country and demand Trinidad take them back

you from south nah

[Syberfraggle]

Land for the Landless.... voter padding happening all now in central...

[airuma]

so how they doing background criminal checks ?

Are they going to get jobs that don't require a police certificate of character?
So are our borders secure enough to prevent more of them from coming? I heard that they are entering thru Tobago now. Without securing our borders first, we will never know how much Venezuelans are here..... this initiative has the characteristics of a knee jerk reaction.

[shake d livin wake d dead]

D fadda ah d nation went up the islands and brought people...shitkickers just going down the islands

[pugboy]

What about medical ?

I know a doctor in pos general who has seen more than few child births too
When they ask them for general info, incl the fadda etc
The does pretend can't speak English and provide zero info.

I am not sure our "free" facilities can handle the extra load without some adjustments of some sort

[FordeG]

This will backfire, venes are racist to the bone. They'll never vote PNM so what's the point? Sent them back. They will change the culture of the country and put a huge strain on our economy.

[matr1x]

Send them back.


In boats..or in bags.

[Dizzy28]

What about medical ?

I know a doctor in pos general who has seen more than few child births too
When they ask them for general info, incl the fadda etc
The does pretend can't speak English and provide zero info.

I am not sure our "free" facilities can handle the extra load without some adjustments of some sort

My father is in Mt Hope since Saturday and one of the patients in the other beds is a Vene male who we met there. He speaks no English and uses a phone translator to communicate with the nurses. So far have no clue what he there for as he is the longest staying patient in there but he looks fine.

I begrudge no one (normally) but I would be lying to say I wasn't a bit vex that my father has a broken bed that is stuck with the head part slightly raised whilst the Vene has a proper functioning bed. Another patient who was discharged yesterday was on the gurney they use to move people around on since he was admitted on the ward.

[pugboy]

That’s the reality for the system
Anybody seriously sick over there would surely be making a decision to come across here for treatment

[MaxPower]

^ and we must embrace them

[Dizzy28]

That’s the reality for the system
Anybody seriously sick over there would surely be making a decision to come across here for treatment

I guess if challenged with that same situation we would do the same.
Its up to the Trinidad to deal with the system

[rspann]

^ and we must embrace them

I see two Vene come out from Malick today, definitely worth embracing.

[vaiostation]

So stuart say, them vene will get ID card, NIS and BIR. He say locals will just have to compete for work.
He also say there will be no cap on the amount of people they going to register.
So if a million Venezuelans register what gonna happen?
De man say after de year them people will leave willfully. But what if they refuse?
He also say he doesn't think it have that many vene in de country.

So everybody who have mouth we go see. Everybody job at risk now, not just cepep.
Doctor, lawyer, engineer, lorryman...

[pugboy]

Funny how Stuart little gone from
“We don’t have many here, it’s not a problem”
To “we need to do something”

[Redman]

I think that there is no good solution to this problem.

We can't kick them out and we really shouldn't.
We can't absorb many more we already straining in terms of public services.

Sheet sandwich either way