RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says the Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s im­mi­gra­tion laws to im­pose jail sen­tences on de­port­ed mi­grants who il­le­gal­ly re-en­ter the coun­try.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said au­thor­i­ties have be­come in­creas­ing­ly con­cerned about mi­grants who are de­port­ed from T&T on­ly to re­turn short­ly af­ter­wards through il­le­gal chan­nels.

“We are de­port­ing per­sons to­day and they come back to­mor­row,” Alexan­der said.

As a re­sult, he in­tends to seek sup­port from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Par­lia­ment for leg­isla­tive changes that would crim­i­nalise re-en­try af­ter de­por­ta­tion.

“I in­tend to ask my Prime Min­is­ter and the Par­lia­ment to change that in terms of the laws. If we de­port you out of T&T and we catch you again, you must face jail time,” he said.

Alexan­der said bor­der se­cu­ri­ty re­mains a crit­i­cal na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue and can­not be treat­ed light­ly.

“Every­body un­der­stands that bor­der se­cu­ri­ty is of ut­most im­por­tance. We have ter­ror­ists, we have oth­er per­sons of dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­i­ties and all. Every coun­try is watch­ing their bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, so we can­not take it light­ly and make ex­cus­es time af­ter time for that type of be­hav­iour,” he said.

The min­is­ter made the com­ments while ad­dress­ing con­cerns about mi­grants who claim they were un­able to com­plete the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise.

Alexan­der said au­thor­i­ties are re­view­ing cas­es in­volv­ing in­di­vid­u­als who can prove they at­tempt­ed to com­ply with the reg­is­tra­tion process but en­coun­tered le­git­i­mate ob­sta­cles.

“The ver­i­fied ones who can be cor­rob­o­rat­ed, we try to ac­com­mo­date them in some way or an­oth­er,” he said.

How­ev­er, he stressed that the Gov­ern­ment would not ex­tend the same con­sid­er­a­tion to mi­grants who en­tered Trinidad and To­ba­go il­le­gal­ly af­ter the reg­is­tra­tion process be­gan.

“But the ones who have en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly, that was the ad­dress,” he said.

Mean­while, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment’s crack­down on the il­le­gal sale of agri­cul­tur­al prod­ucts, in­clud­ing cheese, co­conut oil and hon­ey, will con­tin­ue.

He point­ed to a re­cent po­lice op­er­a­tion in Ce­dros in which of­fi­cers dis­rupt­ed a sus­pect­ed smug­gling op­er­a­tion in­volv­ing live­stock.

Ac­cord­ing to Alexan­der, po­lice in­ter­cept­ed a herd of an­i­mals be­lieved to have been brought in­to the coun­try il­le­gal­ly. While the sus­pect­ed smug­glers man­aged to es­cape, they aban­doned the an­i­mals dur­ing the op­er­a­tion.

Alexan­der said the seizure high­lights on­go­ing con­cerns about il­le­gal cross-bor­der trade and the move­ment of un­reg­u­lat­ed goods in­to T&T.

He warned that law en­force­ment agen­cies will con­tin­ue tar­get­ing il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion net­works as part of broad­er ef­forts to pro­tect pub­lic health, agri­cul­ture and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.