With the sun beating down on their dreary faces, having camped outside the San Fernando registration centre from Thursday night, scores of Venezuelan migrants continued to accept Government’s amnesty despite xenophobic slurs hurled at them from locals.
“Prostitutes”, “Go back home” and “just now you all will eat grass” were among the remarks some commuters travelling along the SS Erin Road near the Achievors Banquet Hall in Duncan Village shouted to the Venezuelan migrants. The two-week amnesty, which expired on June 14, allows migrants to legally to live and work in this country for up to a year.
While many of them spoke only Spanish, those who spoke English were too shy to speak when Guardian Media visited. They would only tell of sleeping under the tents from Thursday night after journeying from places in Palo Seco, Siparia, Cedros and other far rural towns in Trinidad to ensure they were prompt at the registration centre. They showed off their documents and the numbers that were marked on their hands. Many of them were families.
Obawole Biddeau, whose wife is a Venezuelan migrant, believes that citizens should understand and empathise with the struggles being faced by their neighbours. Biddeau and his wife Hecdymar Dominguez have been selling food outside the registration centre since last week Friday, when registration began.
Biddeau was one of the workers retrenched by Petrotrin last December where he spent 12 years as a casual worker. Dominguez has two ill children, ages four and three, back in Venezuela. Seeking ways to survive, they decided to open a cart, selling local and Latin American cuisine. Biddeau said Dominquez uses her earning to send money back to her family in Cumana, Venezuela.
“My wife is Venezuelan and her children are very sick. They’re not well and they’re a poor family so she works and sends money back to them so they can acquire things. It’s mostly food and medicine, which have high prices. Sometimes you don’t get certain medicines. Antibiotics are quite expensive, milk is very expensive and the babies need milk. Sometimes when current goes for days, there is no communication. She doesn’t know how the children are and she starts to cry,” Biddeau said.
Knowing the struggles of unemployment, Biddeau said that he imagined himself as a Venezuelan: hungry and jobless with little means of getting by. If T&T’s economy gets as bad as Venezeula’s, he too would flee his country.
“I think human nature is self-preservation. I think if you’re in trouble and you’re seeing greener pastures somewhere else, definitely human nature will tend to lead you somewhere where there are greener pastures. I put myself in their situation and I said I would have done the same thing. To jump on a boat as a woman and risk your life is not easy.
“Yes, there are a lot of them coming and there should be some measure of controlling the amount. When you look at the number of people over there as compared to here, there is a greater mass. I think that other countries can fall in and assist. Other countries like Peru and Colombia. All of them (migrants) are spread out and they go out to access to medication and groceries. Every day boats come in to transport groceries back to Venezuela legally. If you go down to the port, you would see things coming, things going back. I said boy if we’re in that situation, it will be the same thing.”
While sneaking into T&T may be easy, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ office stated on Thursday that Venezuelans risk land mines and armed groups en route to Colombia.