Trinidad: Venezuelan refugees freed with no place to go

Venezuelan nationals who sneaked into the country yesterday are offered food and drink outside the Siparia Police Station after they were released.

(Trinidad Guardian) Barefeet and cold, lit­tle Lu­cia Meza sat on the street hun­gri­ly lick­ing an emp­ty pack of bis­cuits while her moth­er tried to find ac­com­mo­da­tion for them to spend the night.

The five-year-old child was among 105 peo­ple picked up by po­lice dur­ing a mas­sive crack­down on il­le­gal Venezue­lans on Wednes­day. Among those ar­rest­ed were four Venezue­lan po­lice of­fi­cers and a fire of­fi­cer.

Meza had been on a boat from Tu­cu­pi­ta with her moth­er and sev­er­al oth­er chil­dren since Tues­day night. They ar­rived at Beach Camp, Pa­lo Seco be­fore dawn. They walked for two miles to a for­est camp where they were round­ed up and ar­rest­ed by the po­lice.

Thir­ty-five Venezue­lans were held at Erin, 58 at Beach Camp and 12 at Ce­dros.

Look­ing ha­rassed and scared, the Venezue­lans were tak­en to the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion where they were in­ter­ro­gat­ed. They were re­leased from cus­tody around 5 pm af­ter get­ting an or­der of su­per­vi­sion clear­ance from the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion to stay un­til Ju­ly.

How­ev­er, po­lice said more ar­rests are im­mi­nent.

While some cel­e­brat­ed their re­lease, many were wor­ried about where they would spend the night. A few of them were seen flag­ging down cars hop­ing to get trans­porta­tion to their des­ti­na­tions. Even­tu­al­ly, it was the me­dia who pro­vid­ed them with tele­phone calls and made arrange­ments to get them safe­ly to their rel­a­tives, friends and con­tacts.

The chil­dren, in­clud­ing Meza, sat on a grassy verge on the front of the Pe­nal taxi hub. Of­fi­cers from the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion pooled their own mon­ey to­geth­er and bought them dou­bles, sand­wich­es and soft drinks. A busi­ness­man brought them wa­ter.

A few who used the Guardian Me­dia’s cell­phone of­fer to make calls were sched­uled to meet their con­tacts at var­i­ous parts of the coun­try, in­clud­ing Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande, San Fer­nan­do and Pe­nal.

Guardian Me­dia lat­er called Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh ask­ing that arrange­ments be made for them. At first, he said they could stay in the old Siparia pavil­ion but even­tu­al­ly the Ir­win Park fa­cil­i­ty was opened for them.

Last night, a fur­ther 12 peo­ple were picked up in the forests and tak­en to the sta­tion. A boat was al­so said to be out at sea wait­ing to dock.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has im­posed a crack­down on the fer­ries that bring in Venezue­lans at Ce­dros and since this more Venezue­lans are risk­ing their lives to come through il­le­gal points along the coast­line.

Among the places they used as hide­outs to await their con­tacts once sneak­ing in­to T&T are Dick­ie Trace, Aquillera Road, RE Road, Beach Camp, Erin and San­ta Flo­ra.

Since the in­flux in­creased, res­i­dents of these ar­eas have been very wary of go­ing to the beach­es be­cause of an in­crease in smug­gling, con­tra­band and traf­fick­ing.

Res­i­dent Frank Con­nell said the ar­rests were long in com­ing.

“It’s too much of them com­ing in here. The sit­u­a­tion is we do not know any­thing about them. We don’t know who sick, who is crim­i­nals. Imag­ine I can­not even go to bathe in Pa­lo Seco beach any­more be­cause the Span­ish com­ing in,” he said.

Con­nell ex­plained that the Venezue­lans were wait­ing for their con­tact per­sons to come for them when the po­lice ar­rived.

Vil­lagers stood in their homes gawk­ing as the po­lice pa­trolled up and down the road. They searched Beach Camp, Dick­ie Trace, Jack­son Trace and in the forests of Beach Camp, which is two miles away from the beach.

An­oth­er vil­lager who was heard con­vers­ing in Span­ish said it was a sad thing to see the mi­grants in this state.

“They look­ing for a bet­ter life, that’s all,” she added.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young last evening com­mend­ed the po­lice for the ar­rests, say­ing the ex­er­cise was in­tel­li­gence dri­ven. He said 93 Venezue­lans were ar­rest­ed in the ex­er­cise and were hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion for pro­cess­ing.

On Mon­day, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that five women were be­ing held hostage in a for­est camp and be­ing pros­ti­tut­ed for $400 an hour. Fol­low­ing this state­ment, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion De­onar­ine Bas­deo dis­missed the re­port as fake news. He said 22 camps were searched and no one was ar­rest­ed. Guardian Me­dia has al­so done an ex­pose on the traf­fick­ing of Venezue­lans in Trinidad & Tobago.