Caption: A Venezuelan woman with children during registration of migrants in June 2019. Photo: AZP News/Azlan Mohammed

 

By Alicia Chamely

PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is issuing a stern warning to Venezuelan migrants in Trinidad and Tobago: “Begin returning to your country.”

Speaking at Thursday’s post-cabinet press briefing, held at the Red House, Port of Spain, Persad-Bissessar said her government was currently working on a migrant policy that will be rolled out in the coming months, specifically to address the increase in drug and human trafficking being perpetuated by Venezuelan nationals.

She said, “I warned you all before the elections to behave yourself, yet crime involving Venezuelans continues to increase. In the interim I am advising Venezuelan migrants who are here to please begin returning to your country.”

Persad-Bissessar said there was a noticeable increase in drug and human trafficking in the southern and southwestern areas of the island.

She said there were increased reports of female human traffickers, saying, “Let me be clear, some Venezuelan women are the main persons who run the human trafficking rings.”

Persad-Bissessar said, in reference to the drug trade, members of the Venezuelan migrant community were now escorting local gang members from Trinidad, into Venezuela and then into Colombia to facilitate business with cocaine producers.

She said, “So some Trinidadian gangs are now cutting out the middlemen and going straight to Colombian producers ably facilitated by Venezuelans who have been welcomed into this country.”

Persad-Bissessar said many of the migrants involved in criminal activity have the legal registration documents, extended to refugees under the previous government.

She accused them of having “duped the system” and sternly advised them to return to Venezuela.