T&T National Security Minister tells detained Venezuelans: Amnesty coming

National Security Minister Stuart Young speaks to Venezuelan nationals detained at the Immigration Detention Centre during his visit to the facility, yesterday.
National Security Minister Stuart Young speaks to Venezuelan nationals detained at the Immigration Detention Centre during his visit to the facility, yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) A loud round of ap­plause and cheers of prais­es and grat­i­tude erupt­ed from the bas­ket­ball court at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre (IDC) in Aripo yes­ter­day when Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young shared a ray of hope to the Venezue­lan de­tainees telling them that they may soon be freed and al­lowed to work in T&T for one year soon.

Young, who toured the fa­cil­i­ty for more than one hour, dis­closed to the Guardian Me­dia that he will be tak­ing a pol­i­cy to Cab­i­net this week on the pro­posed Venezue­lan amnesty.

“Once Cab­i­net takes a de­ci­sion then we reg­is­ter all Venezue­lan Na­tion­als in­clud­ing those who are at the IDC who over­stayed or en­tered il­le­gal­ly…we will have dis­cre­tion and we’ll have them reg­is­tered but if they have com­mit­ted any crime or crim­i­nal acts then we are not go­ing to re­lease them, “ Young said.

“Once cab­i­net pass­es the pol­i­cy then we will reg­is­ter you and you will be al­lowed to work legal­ly in this coun­try for a year so you will be free to come out and earn a liv­ing etc, “ he added.

The pol­i­cy po­si­tion for il­le­gal and le­gal Venezue­lans in Trinidad and To­ba­go to be al­lowed an amnesty where they will be giv­en ID cards and al­lowed to work in the coun­try for one year was first an­nounced in March by Young dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s.

Young said then that his rec­om­men­da­tion would be that the reg­is­tra­tion of Venezue­lans take place over a two-week pe­ri­od and the lo­gis­tics would be worked out.

He had urged Venezue­lans to come for­ward when the reg­is­tra­tion be­gins, as he as­sured no one would be de­tained and they had noth­ing to fear.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Young’s vis­it to the fa­cil­i­ty came just mere hours af­ter an­oth­er es­cape where this time five de­tainees man­aged to es­cape and up to press time were still miss­ing. They were iden­ti­fied as four Venezue­lan na­tion­als and one Chi­nese.

Af­ter the your of the IDC at about 4 pm Young ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion.

“ I am just here to get down on­to the ground and un­der­stand ex­act­ly what our fa­cil­i­ties are. I have toured all the pris­ons ex­cept Car­rera Is­land. I have toured a num­ber of po­lice sta­tions, army bases and Coast Guard Etc. Af­ter tour­ing the IDC I will then tour the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ty. I un­der­stand that the IDC is full to ca­pac­i­ty and I’m want­i­ng to find more room at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Fa­cil­i­ty. These tours will en­able me to get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing as to what is go­ing on and how to bet­ter them… more im­por­tant­ly,“ Young said.

Just be­fore Young emerged from the IDC a Venezue­lan Na­tion­al cried to the Guardian Me­dia stat­ing much frus­tra­tion with him be­ing de­tained at the fa­cil­i­ty for “just be­ing in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly and want­i­ng to work and bet­ter his life.”

The Venezue­lan na­tion­al said it is un­fair to him as he has three chil­dren to take care of, all of whom he said are Trinida­di­ans.

“We want Free­dom!” the Venezue­lan na­tion­al shout­ed.