RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says there will be no re­duc­tion in im­mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion fees, even as more than 1,600 mi­grants have al­ready en­gaged the reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem since it opened ear­ly yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said reg­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial­ly be­gan at mid­night on Jan­u­ary 26, 2026, and by 1 pm the on­line plat­form had record­ed heavy traf­fic, re­flect­ing strong in­ter­est in the process. She said the web­site re­ceived 137,198 hits with­in the first 13 hours of op­er­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to fig­ures pro­vid­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter, 1,611 ap­pli­cants had start­ed the reg­is­tra­tion process but had not yet com­plet­ed their ap­pli­ca­tions, while 599 im­mi­grants had suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed reg­is­tra­tion by mid­day.

Sev­er­al mi­grants com­plained that the $700 fees for adults (chil­dren are free) were too steep, but when asked whether the Gov­ern­ment will con­sid­er re­duc­ing them, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed, “No.”

How­ev­er, the high vol­ume of traf­fic co­in­cid­ed with re­ports of tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties on the first day of reg­is­tra­tion, rais­ing con­cerns among im­mi­grants and or­gan­i­sa­tions as­sist­ing them.

Cuban im­mi­grant Yor­landy Al­man­za was among those who en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties ac­cess­ing the on­line plat­form. Sev­er­al im­mi­grants turned to cy­ber cafés and im­mi­grant sup­port groups for help.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Fen­ton Bar­riteau, of Baros Of­fice Sup­plies in San Fer­nan­do, said at­tempts to ac­cess the web­site on Mon­day morn­ing were un­suc­cess­ful, even as im­mi­grants ar­rived seek­ing as­sis­tance.

“We at­tempt­ed to get on­to the site, and we got redi­rect­ed, and it’s not func­tion­al,” Bar­riteau said.

He ex­plained that his busi­ness was pre­pared to as­sist im­mi­grants with the on­line process, in­clud­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ing on­line pay­ments where re­quired, as has been done in the past for oth­er im­mi­gra­tion-re­lat­ed ap­pli­ca­tions.

“We no­ticed that it’s an on­line pay­ment sys­tem, so as we’ve done in the past with stu­dent per­mits, we’re will­ing to use our cards to make the pay­ment and ac­cept cash from the ap­pli­cant,” he said.

Bar­riteau not­ed that many im­mi­grants were al­ready fa­mil­iar with the cy­ber café, hav­ing used its ser­vices for pre­vi­ous im­mi­gra­tion mat­ters, but said it was dis­ap­point­ing that the sys­tem was not op­er­a­tional on the first day.

“The one month al­lot­ted by the Gov­ern­ment is fair, but it’s a bit dis­ap­point­ing that it’s not work­ing on the first day,” he said, adding that once func­tion­al, the process should be seam­less.

Al­so ex­press­ing con­cern was Ang­ie Ram­nar­ine of the La Ro­maine Mi­grant Sup­port Group (LARMS), who said im­mi­grants had been anx­ious­ly await­ing the launch of the reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem. She said she ac­com­pa­nied an im­mi­grant to a cy­ber café yes­ter­day morn­ing to ob­serve how the process would un­fold so she could bet­ter ad­vise oth­ers.

“I was very anx­ious to see how it would roll out so that I could more com­pe­tent­ly ad­vise oth­ers,” Ram­nar­ine said.

She not­ed that while LARMS works close­ly with Venezue­lan im­mi­grants, oth­er im­mi­grant com­mu­ni­ties re­main cau­tious about the process.

“Some mi­grants from oth­er na­tion­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty, are still very sus­pi­cious,” Ram­nar­ine said. “More needs to be done to en­cour­age all sec­tors of the mi­grant com­mu­ni­ty to come out, be­cause this is very im­por­tant for da­ta col­lec­tion.”

Ram­nar­ine said the ini­tial tech­ni­cal chal­lenges were dis­ap­point­ing and could dis­cour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion.

“I had hoped for a more ef­fi­cient and seam­less process com­pared with the 2019 reg­is­tra­tion,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t de­ter peo­ple from ac­cess­ing and reg­is­ter­ing, be­cause I re­al­ly want this to be an ef­fi­cient and suc­cess­ful ex­er­cise.”

She added that clear­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion and greater ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty from au­thor­i­ties would help build con­fi­dence among im­mi­grants.

On­line reg­is­tra­tion for im­mi­grants will re­main open un­til Feb­ru­ary 25, af­ter which ap­proved ap­pli­cants will be sched­uled for in-per­son in­ter­views fol­low­ing Car­ni­val. Ap­pli­cants must first reg­is­ter at mi­grantreg­is­tra­tion.gov.tt.

Manda­to­ry in-per­son ver­i­fi­ca­tion will be­gin at the end of Feb­ru­ary 2026, with the ex­act date to be an­nounced. Phys­i­cal vet­ting will take place at four venues: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um (Port-of-Spain), Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um (Ari­ma), Ato Boldon Sta­di­um (Cou­va), and Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um (To­ba­go).

The process will in­clude po­lice se­cu­ri­ty checks with fin­ger­print­ing and back­ground screen­ing, along with on-site health as­sess­ments by Health Min­istry of­fi­cials. Suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants will re­ceive an im­mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion card au­tho­ris­ing them to live and work in Trinidad and To­ba­go un­til De­cem­ber 31.