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Sunday, July 20, 2025

As T&T Im­mi­gra­tion tight­ens se­cu­ri­ty...

Less Venezuelans coming

by

20160712

Even as Venezuela tem­porar­i­ly opened its west­ern bor­der with Colom­bia to al­low trade, T&T Cus­toms and Ex­cise of­fi­cers yes­ter­day re­port­ed a sharp drop in Venezue­lan ar­rivals at the Ce­dros and Kings Wharf ports.

A source at Kings Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, said last month an av­er­age of 60 for­eign­ers ar­rived a day. How­ev­er, this fig­ure had dropped by 90 per cent, the source added.

"Now we have more car­go ves­sels com­ing in and very few pas­sen­gers," an of­fi­cial said.

At Ce­dros, an of­fi­cial said ar­rivals al­so dropped by 30 per cent. Ce­dros has been reg­is­ter­ing an in­crease in Venezue­lans since 2013. Ar­rivals from Venezuela jumped by 6,000 be­tween 2013 and 2014 from 15,008 to 21,052.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, a se­nior Cus­toms of­fi­cial said the de­crease in ar­rivals was oc­cur­ring not be­cause of Venezuela's open bor­der with Colom­bia but be­cause of stricter reg­u­la­tions en­forced by the T&T Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment.

"Venezue­lans must present proof of lodg­ing, an in­vi­ta­tion let­ter and they must show they have suf­fi­cient funds be­fore be­ing al­lowed time to stay in Trinidad," he added.

Al­so in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan na­tion­al, Leo Gon­za­les, said the new im­mi­gra­tion rules were mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for Venezue­lans to come to Trinidad.

Asked why he had not tak­en ad­van­tage of the open bor­der op­por­tu­ni­ty to go to Colom­bia for sup­plies, Gon­za­les said it would take him 32 hours of bus rides to get to the Colom­bian bor­der and a four-hour boat ride to get to Trinidad.

"Which one of those would you choose?" he asked, smil­ing.

He said peo­ple from Cara­cas and Mara­cai­bo would find it eas­i­er to reach the Colom­bian bor­der.

Gon­za­les al­so said that few­er Venezue­lans were com­ing to Trinidad with­in re­cent times be­cause Im­mi­gra­tion was al­low­ing on­ly four oc­cu­pants in a pirogue.

"They are al­low­ing on­ly four peo­ple to come in. Venezue­lans are pay­ing to come here for three months. They need funds to come here to buy goods to feed their fam­i­lies be­cause the Venezue­lan econ­o­my is so bad but many peo­ple are run­ning out of funds so peo­ple don't have the means to come here," Gon­za­les said.

Adding that Trinidad had tight­ened se­cu­ri­ty, Gon­za­les called on the T&T Gov­ern­ment to en­cour­age trade with the Venezue­lans.

"Set up a sys­tem where peo­ple who are skilled can come and find work here so they can feed their fam­i­lies," Gon­za­les added.

He al­so added that it was dif­fi­cult for Venezue­lans to get res­i­den­cy in Trinidad.

Mark Win­ter, a Trinida­di­an who mar­ried a Venezue­lan and has two chil­dren, said his wife was still wait­ing for res­i­den­cy sta­tus.

He al­so said T&T Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers were not grant­i­ng ex­ten­sions to Venezue­lans.

"That is why peo­ple are over­stay­ing their time. The au­thor­i­ties should grant them some time to stay in Trinidad. They are in dire need of help. If we were in that sit­u­a­tion, we would ex­pect peo­ple to help us," Win­ter added.

Mark Bax­ter, who lives in Kings Wharf, agreed with Win­ter. He said the Venezue­lans pre­sent­ed a great op­por­tu­ni­ty for trade.


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