Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Act­ing For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says if a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis un­folds in Venezuela due to po­ten­tial land at­tacks from the Unit­ed States, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­ready giv­en her com­mit­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go will stand with the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

How­ev­er, Padarath made it clear that this does not trans­late to an open-door mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. He stressed that T&T would con­tin­ue to op­er­ate strict­ly with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law to man­age mi­gra­tion.

But mi­grant ad­vo­cates are call­ing for greater clar­i­ty. The La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group (LARMS) says the Gov­ern­ment must ex­plain what con­sti­tutes “le­gal mi­gra­tion,” ar­gu­ing that the process has been blurred since the is­suance of Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Cards in 2019.

US of­fi­cials re­port­ed­ly held a tense phone call with Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro last week, of­fer­ing him a fi­nal ex­it deal: step down im­me­di­ate­ly, leave the coun­try with his fam­i­ly, and re­ceive safe pas­sage. The of­fer, me­di­at­ed by Brazil, Qatar and Turkey, was quick­ly re­ject­ed af­ter Maduro de­mand­ed sweep­ing con­ces­sions, in­clud­ing in­ter­na­tion­al amnesty, con­trol over the mil­i­tary, and time to ne­go­ti­ate his de­par­ture. Wash­ing­ton dis­missed those terms, and the talks col­lapsed with­in min­utes.

Days lat­er, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump de­clared all Venezue­lan air­space closed, warn­ing air­lines and traf­fick­ers to com­ply im­me­di­ate­ly, a move wide­ly seen in Cara­cas as a sign that US land op­er­a­tions could soon fol­low.

At a White House me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Press Sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt was asked what was the pos­si­bil­i­ty of US troops be­ing on the ground in Venezuela.

Leav­itt said there were many op­tions at Pres­i­dent Trump’s dis­pos­al and con­firmed that the Pres­i­dent was meet­ing with his na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty team, where Venezuela and many oth­er mat­ters would be dis­cussed.

But a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty source in T&T said if, in fact, there is ag­gres­sion be­tween the US and Venezuela, this coun­try’s biggest threat may be the mass mi­gra­tion of Venezue­lans, which could lead to fur­ther so­cioe­co­nom­ic is­sues such as crime.

Guardian Me­dia asked Min­is­ter Padarath what con­tin­gency plans are in place for such an even­tu­al­i­ty.

Padarath said, “In any hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis through­out the world, na­tions work with the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR) to pro­vide re­lief and sup­port. The Prime Min­is­ter has con­sis­tent­ly said that we sup­port the peo­ple of Venezuela.”

He added, “We have al­ready seen droves of Venezue­lans jour­ney to T&T over the past few years. A sit­u­a­tion that was mis­man­aged by the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

How­ev­er, Padarath stressed, “There are process­es to treat with le­gal mi­gra­tion and those process­es will, of course, be ad­hered to. Bor­der con­trol, se­cu­ri­ty and man­age­ment is an area that the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty is work­ing dili­gent­ly to im­prove up­on.”

Guardian Me­dia re­mind­ed the min­is­ter that the UN­HCR’s Na­tion­al Of­fice in T&T was closed for good as of Au­gust 31, 2025, due to glob­al fund­ing short­falls. All op­er­a­tions are now be­ing man­aged re­mote­ly by the UN­HCR’s Mul­ti-Coun­try Of­fice in Pana­ma, sup­port­ed by a min­i­mal staff pres­ence in T&T.

But Padarath said this does not mean its ser­vices are still not ac­ces­si­ble.

Asked if this means this coun­try will be wel­com­ing Venezue­lans flee­ing dan­ger, Padarath said, “We will work with­in the pa­ra­me­ter of the law.”

How­ev­er, Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine, co­or­di­na­tor of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group, is ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain what the cur­rent le­gal process for mi­gra­tion is.

“I think that’s where For­eign Af­fairs has to come in and ex­plain to me what is le­gal mi­gra­tion. Le­gal mi­gra­tion, they were prob­a­bly talk­ing about peo­ple who prob­a­bly get mar­ried here. Le­gal mi­gra­tion, in a time when your coun­try is not in cri­sis, would mean some­thing dif­fer­ent as op­posed to when your coun­try is in cri­sis, and you’re forced to flee. How can peo­ple get le­gal mi­gra­tion?”

Ram­nar­ine added, “Be­cause even in 2019, when they chose to reg­is­ter these 16,000 peo­ple by giv­ing them cards that would per­mit them to live and work here, I’m sure over 90 per cent of those peo­ple did not come here legal­ly.

“All of them came il­le­gal­ly. And hav­ing been in the coun­try at that point in time, their sta­tus sud­den­ly be­came le­gal by be­ing grant­ed this card. So, I don’t know if that made it le­gal mi­gra­tion.”

Mean­while, Ram­nar­ine is doubt­ful there will be a mass ex­o­dus of Venezue­lans if, in fact, war breaks out. She said Venezue­lans are fear­ful that any ves­sels they use for trans­port would be tar­get­ed by the US, like the so-called drug-traf­fick­ing ves­sels.

As of late No­vem­ber 2025, the US mil­i­tary has con­duct­ed more than 20 strikes against sus­pect­ed drug-smug­gling ves­sels across the com­bined Caribbean Sea and East­ern Pa­cif­ic Ocean the­atres, killing over 80 peo­ple.