Fifty-six Venezue­lan na­tion­als, in­clud­ing 42 women, were fined sums to­tal­ly $280,000 in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court this week af­ter they plead­ed guilty to en­ter­ing the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

Thir­ty-two of them were fined on Thurs­day—the same day Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced that reg­is­tra­tion for all Venezue­lans in this coun­try will com­mence be­tween May 31 and June 14.

Young said Venezue­lans housed at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre will al­so be al­lowed to reg­is­ter.

Reg­is­tered Venezue­lans would be giv­en a form of an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card and the op­tion to work for six months to a year. The 56 Venezue­lans plead­ed guilty in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates Court. They en­tered the coun­try through an il­le­gal port of en­try this year and failed to re­port to an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer.

They were each fined $5,000 and al­lowed two months to pay or serve three months in jail. At least 24 of the women were ar­rest­ed at Clas­sic Sea­men and Four Play Restau­rant and Bar.

All of them were held in the South­ern Di­vi­sion with­in the last week. Twen­ty four of the women ap­peared in court on Mon­day and were fined. Nine­teen oth­ers, con­sist­ing of ten women and nine men, ap­peared on Tues­day and were re­mand­ed to Thurs­day. And on Thurs­day they along with 13 oth­ers, in­clud­ing eight women, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate In­dar Ja­groo.

With the as­sis­tance of Span­ish in­ter­preter Luz Maria Tapais-de-Copi­lah, they claimed they en­tered the coun­try this month. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Venezue­lans have been flee­ing their home­land which is in a so­cial and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis.

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tion records as of May 2018 than es­ti­mat­ed 40,000 Venezue­lans were liv­ing in T&T.