Six­ty Venezue­lans who were caught com­ing in­to Trinidad il­le­gal­ly over the past week­end are de­tained at the Ce­dros po­lice sta­tion.

A source said some of the men are housed in the cells while the women are be­ing housed up­stairs.

Some of the Venezue­lans have been hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion de­part­ment.

A source said since the in­flux of Venezue­lans at Chatham, Gal­far and Ce­dros, an ad­di­tion­al com­ple­ment of Coast Guard of­fi­cers have been sent to Ce­dros. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty al­so de­ployed three ad­di­tion­al ve­hi­cles but there has been no in­crease in the sea fleet.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said most of the Coast Guards­men have been do­ing pa­trols along the coast. How­ev­er, he said there was a need to have more fre­quent sea pa­trols.

"The Coast Guard need to in­ter­cept these Venezue­lans at sea and send them back. There are ar­eas which are not ac­ces­si­ble be­cause there are no roads. This coastal strip from Gal­far Beach to Chatham is not eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble on foot so the Min­istry must al­so boost the pa­trols at sea," Teelucks­ingh added.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence last week, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young said long be­fore COVID-19, the gov­ern­ment took steps to safe­guard T&T's bor­ders.

He said pa­trols have been stepped up.