Geisha Kow­lessar

Peo­ple try­ing to en­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go with bo­gus cre­den­tials and trick­ery will be de­nied en­try and sent back to their home coun­tries, says Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith.Grif­fith made the com­ment yes­ter­day as he warned for­eign­ers that if they did not meet this coun­try's strict en­try re­quire­ments they would not be al­lowed in.

The min­is­ter, in a tele­phone in­ter­view, said there were some 30,000 il­le­gal im­mi­grants, in­clud­ing those from Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Guyana and oth­er Caribbean coun­tries and var­i­ous parts of Africa, liv­ing and work­ing in T&T, who were not pay­ing tax­es and deny­ing lo­cals of job op­por­tu­ni­ties.Im­mi­gra­tion sources said yes­ter­day that they al­so in­tend to lo­cate il­le­gal im­mi­grants in T&T and de­port them to their re­spec­tive coun­tries.

Asked to elab­o­rate on his plans to tack­le il­le­gal im­mi­grants, Grif­fith said he pre­ferred not to com­ment, as there were sen­si­tive talks now tak­ing place be­tween T&T and Ja­maica re­gard­ing the re­cent de­por­ta­tion of 13 Ja­maicans at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.The de­por­ta­tion has led to an­gry re­ac­tion from Ja­maica's busi­ness groups and cit­i­zens, who have launched so­cial me­dia cam­paigns call­ing for a boy­cott of goods from this coun­try and next year's Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties in T&T.

To pla­cate the sit­u­a­tion, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an has been in­vit­ed by his Ja­maican coun­ter­part, Arnold J Nichol­son, to talks aimed at re­solv­ing the dis­pute.Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said T&T was not be­ing "ob­nox­ious" in block­ing those who failed to pro­duce valid doc­u­ments at the ports of en­try."We can­not con­tin­ue to have a sit­u­a­tion where peo­ple are com­ing in­to the coun­try and rob­bing the State of mil­lions by not pay­ing tax­es," he said.

"What is even worse is that T&T cit­i­zens who are in dire need of a job can­not get one be­cause these peo­ple are rob­bing them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do so."He main­tained there were many flock­ing to T&T from oth­er Caribbean coun­tries us­ing the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) pol­i­cy as a means of do­ing so, but said this must be halt­ed since many of them ar­rived here al­though they did not meet the re­quire­ments. "This is clear­ly a wor­ry­ing and fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion for T&T," Grif­fith said.

"The im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers will con­tin­ue to do their du­ty and those who do not meet the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments will be sent back...It's as clear as that." "Those com­ing un­der CSME should al­ready have knowl­edge about the pro­gramme be­fore en­ter­ing a coun­try. The onus is on them to be aware of the guide­lines, so when they reach im­mi­gra­tion all their doc­u­ments would be in or­der."

He said he was tak­ing the stance, not on­ly to pro­tect the rights of cit­i­zens, but al­so the wel­fare of for­eign­ers. "If some­one slipped through im­mi­gra­tion and ends up in Trinidad and they have no job to re­ly on, then they could end up on the streets and this could al­so lead to a life of crime," Grif­fith said. "This is def­i­nite­ly what we do not want in Trinidad. The prob­lem is mul­ti­fac­eted and we have to deal with it as soon as pos­si­ble."

The is­sue con­tin­ues to gain re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion and was yes­ter­day raised in the ed­i­to­r­i­al of Ja­maica's Glean­er news­pa­per, which said the two main is­sues to be looked at were trade and the free move­ment of peo­ple with­in the re­gion. "On the mat­ter of trade, the quar­rel is pri­mar­i­ly with Trinidad and To­ba­go, the com­mu­ni­ty's strongest and ma­jor man­u­fac­tur­er. More than 90 per cent of our near US$1 bil­lion trade deficit with Cari­com is with Trinidad and To­ba­go," the Glean­er said.

"Ja­maica's man­u­fac­tur­ers have pri­ma­ry com­plaints against the Trinida­di­ans: that Port-of-Spain us­es its do­mes­ti­cal­ly avail­able cheap en­er­gy to sub­sidise its en­ter­pris­es, that it cheats on Cari­com rules-ofo­ri­gin re­quire­ments, and that it us­es non-tar­iff bar­ri­ers to de­ny ac­cess to its mar­kets by Ja­maicans."