Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, has ex­pressed con­cern over what he says is a dan­ger­ous prece­dent be­ing set by ju­di­cial of­fi­cers as it per­tains to the il­le­gal en­try of Venezue­lan na­tion­als with­in the bor­ders of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Com­mis­sion­er was com­ment­ing on a re­cent de­ci­sion with­in the Ju­di­cia­ry, which saw 24 per­sons be­ing rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged, rather than be­ing fined or im­pris­oned, as ob­tains in the law.

“There is far too much lib­er­ty be­ing af­ford­ed by ju­di­cial of­fi­cers to the il­le­gal Venezue­lan en­trants which per­me­ate our bor­ders, with­out any form of re­dress for their mis­deeds, and who are like­ly to be bring­ing the Covid-19 virus to our shores,” the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er says in an of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith, “there ap­pears to be no de­ter­rent fac­tor be­ing ad­vanced by the ju­di­cial sys­tem and this can be tan­ta­mount to cre­at­ing an open in­vi­ta­tion for non-na­tion­als to en­ter T&T il­le­gal­ly with­out fear of fine, im­pris­on­ment or repa­tri­a­tion.”

The Com­mis­sion­er states his man­date, un­der the law, is to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of the coun­try—and dur­ing the cur­rent pan­dem­ic, “the coun­try’s im­mune sys­tem”—with­in the con­fines of na­tion­al laws.  He al­so states that the ju­di­cial sys­tem has a man­date to is­sue penal­ties up­on those who wish to dis­re­gard these laws.

“It is dis­tress­ing to note that in the time of a pan­dem­ic, where the re­sources of this coun­try are lim­it­ed, that every in­te­gral part of this coun­try’s “im­mu­ni­ty” is not work­ing in har­mo­ny for the pro­tec­tion of its peo­ple,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith ar­gues.

He adds: “Every facet of the law must act ro­bust­ly to en­force the Laws and Reg­u­la­tions in place to cre­ate an ef­fec­tive de­ter­rent to those who wish to flout the pro­tec­tive mea­sures tak­en by our gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the sharp in­crease in the num­ber of per­sons in­fect­ed with Covid-19.”

The top cop ref­er­ences the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, specif­i­cal­ly Chap 18:01 Sec­tion 40, as be­ing crit­i­cal to pro­tect­ing the coun­try dur­ing the cur­rent pan­dem­ic.

The Act states: “Any per­son who—

(a) comes in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go at any place oth­er than a port of en­try and fails to re­port to an im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer for ex­am­i­na­tion; is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion for a first of­fence to a fine of fifty thou­sand dol­lars ($50,000) and to im­pris­on­ment for three years, and on any sub­se­quent con­vic­tion to a fine of one hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for five years.”

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith notes that 12 per­sons have been con­vict­ed of aid­ing and abet­ting Venezue­lans to ar­rive through the il­le­gal ports—four Venezue­lans, one Niger­ian, a na­tion­al of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and six Trinida­di­ans.

“They were each fined $1,500 al­though they could have been fined up to $50,000,” he points out.  “Un­der Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, the TTPS can seize the ve­hi­cles used in the trans­porta­tion of these il­le­gal im­mi­grants.”

The Com­mis­sion­er al­so cites the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, Chap­ter 12:04 of 1917, which is the pri­ma­ry leg­is­la­tion be­ing used by the gov­ern­ment in the de­c­la­ra­tion of COVID-19 as an in­fec­tious dis­ease and a threat to the pub­lic’s health.

“Pur­suant to Sec­tion 105 of the said Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance, the Gov­ern­ment of this coun­try made reg­u­la­tions for the pur­pose of pro­tec­tion of its pop­u­lace dur­ing these tu­mul­tuous times,” he ex­plains.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith high­lights specif­i­cal­ly Reg­u­la­tions 10 and 14 of the Pub­lic Health [2019 Nov­el Coro­n­avirus (2019-nCoV] (No. 10) Reg­u­la­tions, which state that,

“10. All air and sea ports or any place where an air­craft or ship or ves­sel can land shall, ex­cept in re­la­tion to air and sea car­go, re­main closed to the ar­rival or de­par­ture of air­craft or ships or oth­er ves­sels car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers un­less per­mit­ted by the Min­is­ter with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty…

14. A per­son who con­tra­venes reg­u­la­tions 3 to 5, 8, 10 and 13 com­mits and of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of two hun­dred and fifty thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for six months.”