Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has slammed back at crit­ics of her state­ments on Venezue­lan mi­grants, in­clud­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, call­ing it “lu­na­cy.”

Yes­ter­day, in a state­ment to the me­dia, she main­tained her po­si­tion that cit­i­zens al­ready have a prob­lem with lo­cal gangs and “we don’t need mi­grants com­mit­ting crimes here al­so.”

On Wednes­day, Hinds, as well as Min­is­ters Dr Amery Browne and Colm Im­bert, re­spond­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments about Venezue­lan mi­grants and the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tion on them.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader spoke about the mur­ders of na­tion­als like her con­stituent, pen­sion­er Win­ston Thomas, who was robbed, ab­duct­ed, and stabbed in the head by “Span­ish-speak­ing men.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised that her fu­ture UNC gov­ern­ment would de­port delin­quent il­le­gal Venezue­lans. She had point­ed to US Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump’s poli­cies and de­clared, “Tri­nis first!” She warned Venezue­lan mi­grants to be­have or “go back home!”

Hinds ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of “rais­ing sev­er­al se­ri­ous is­sues in her reck­less out­burst, which were in­tend­ed to play pol­i­tics and mim­ic Don­ald Trump. Is­sues of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, crime, so­cial co­he­sion, and xeno­pho­bia arise from her state­ments.”

But yes­ter­day, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said, “It’s as­tound­ing that Min­is­ters (Amery) Browne, (Colm) Im­bert, and Hinds care more for mi­grants who com­mit crimes than for Mr Thomas and our own cit­i­zens. Make com­mon sense and safe­ty the pri­or­i­ty!

“A 69-year-old man was beat­en, robbed, kid­napped, stabbed in the head and mur­dered, but in­stead of stand­ing up for our cit­i­zens’ safe­ty, we see lu­natic min­is­ters and com­men­ta­tors po­lit­i­cal­ly simp­ing for crim­i­nals with fake out­rage about xeno­pho­bia and ha­tred.”

She ques­tioned the “wokeism” com­ing from some in the coun­try. “The lev­el of id­io­cy, lu­na­cy, and po­lit­i­cal simp­ing be­ing ex­hib­it­ed in the name of po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect virtue sig­nalling wokeism by some me­dia ed­i­tors, politi­cians, ac­tivists, and com­men­ta­tors who seem to have aban­doned com­mon sense is as­tound­ing. “They would have the pop­u­la­tion be­lieve the Span­ish-speak­ing men re­spon­si­ble for mur­der­ing Mr Thomas were more like­ly to be Xavi, Ini­es­ta, and Fab­re­gas and not Venezue­lan mi­grants. Mr Win­ston Thomas had an un­pleas­ant in­ter­ac­tion last week with Venezue­lan mi­grants be­fore he was al­leged­ly kid­napped and mur­dered by three Span­ish-speak­ing men,” she stat­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said that she would not be de­part­ing from her orig­i­nal com­ments.

“Our cit­i­zens have been ex­ceed­ing­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ing and gen­er­ous over the last few years. We al­ready have a prob­lem with lo­cal gangs; we don’t need mi­grants com­mit­ting crimes here al­so.

“I fur­ther re­mind that T&T mi­grants in the USA who com­mit crimes have al­ways been de­port­ed: that is not a Trump pol­i­cy. I stand solid­ly by my pre­vi­ous com­ments on the de­por­ta­tion of crim­i­nals and reaf­firm them. The well-be­ing and safe­ty of T&T cit­i­zens must al­ways come first.”

Mean­while, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day rub­bished Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­por­ta­tion threat to delin­quent Venezue­lans as “cheap pol­i­tics which can hurt some peo­ple.”

He warned against, “fol­low­ing oth­er peo­ple’s play­book and copy­ing from oth­er peo­ple.”