Kali­fa Clyne

Peo­ple from across the coun­try de­scend­ed on the pass­port of­fice in Port-of-Spain for "emer­gency" pass­ports as the of­fice open­ing hours re­turned to nor­mal.The of­fice had been closed for most of last month, as em­ploy­ees with­held their ser­vices at the Fred­er­ick Street build­ing over health and safe­ty is­sues.Gov­ern­ment ob­tained an in­junc­tion on Ju­ly 3 to pre­vent fur­ther ac­tion by em­ploy­ees of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, led by Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke.

Duke is be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court over whether he breached the in­junc­tion pre­vent­ing Im­mi­gra­tion staff from stop­ping work.Ke­ston Emp­tage, a Fyz­abad res­i­dent, was one of sev­er­al peo­ple who trav­elled from south and east Trinidad to Port-of-Spain with the hope of re­triev­ing their pass­ports for im­me­di­ate trav­el.

"I kept call­ing for the past two months, be­cause I had booked to go to the States since May. They kept telling me to call back and I kept call­ing. I have to catch my flight tonight, so they told me to come in to­day and I would re­trieve it."I was told that things aren't back to nor­mal but that they were mak­ing pro­vi­sions for emer­gency sit­u­a­tions,"As Emp­tage was be­ing in­ter­viewed, his name was called by an Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer and he went to col­lect his pass­port.

While some staff and su­per­vi­sors re­fused to com­ment, one em­ploy­ee, who re­fused to give her name, said work at the of­fice had "sort of" re­turned to nor­mal."We have been open up un­til 3 pm and if you look, you can see cus­tomers are be­ing served," she said.A line of about five peo­ple stood at the col­lec­tions counter, and while some were turned away, or asked to re­turn on an­oth­er day, oth­ers ap­peared re­lieved as they walked away with their doc­u­ments.

Over a dozen oth­ers sat in chairs, wait­ing for Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers to be­gin the ap­pli­ca­tion in­ter­views."I've been wait­ing four months to get a pass­port for my one-year-old daugh­ter," said a woman from Man­zanil­la. "She needs the pass­port in or­der for me to open a bank ac­count for her, but be­cause of the shut­down I kept com­ing and be­ing turned away. I was lucky, be­cause when I walked in, I saw the su­per­vi­sor and spoke to her and she said she would help."

A St Ann's res­i­dent, who need­ed her pass­port to trav­el to the Unit­ed King­dom to study, said she was re­lieved that she would be get­ting her pass­port."For the last month, I would come and I would stand out­side in a line wait­ing and hop­ing to get my pass­port. It was frus­trat­ing be­cause I just need­ed to col­lect it. I leave next month, though, so I am just glad every­thing worked out."