KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porterkevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly de­fend­ed schools’ re­jec­tion of Syr­i­an-born Ish­mael Roberts, say­ing the onus was on his par­ents to reg­u­larise his im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus. Ish­mael was one year old when he came to Trinidad with his par­ents, who had gone to join the Is­lam­ic State of Iran and Syr­ia (ISIS). Gads­by-Dol­ly told the Sen­ate on Tues­day that a me­dia re­port high­light­ed Is­mael’s case in 2023, ex­plain­ing he was repa­tri­at­ed from Syr­ia with his moth­er, Mar­sha Roberts. As a non-cit­i­zen, he was un­able to at­tend school.

She said it ap­peared that Ish­mael fell in­to a cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple with­out doc­u­ments. She said Ish­mael’s im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus was un­clear since there were no fur­ther de­tails in the sto­ry. 

Gads­by-Dol­ly said un­der T&T laws, for­eign cit­i­zens must pos­sess a min­i­mum of a birth cer­tifi­cate or pass­port and an im­mu­ni­sa­tion card to ap­ply for a stu­dent per­mit to gain ac­cess to lo­cal schools. She said prin­ci­pals have strict in­struc­tions to abide by the well-es­tab­lished and long­stand­ing le­gal re­quire­ments for en­try in­to schools in T&T. These are a Birth Cer­tifi­cate, in the case of a child who is a cit­i­zen by de­scent, a valid T&T Pass­port or Cer­tifi­cate of Im­mi­gra­tion Sta­tus and an im­mu­ni­sa­tion record of sched­ule.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion em­pathis­es with Ms Roberts and un­der­stands her con­cern about her son’s in­abil­i­ty to ac­cess the school sys­tem, but the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of Ish­mael’s sta­tus must be pur­sued by his par­ents through the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and/or the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will not know­ing­ly or ca­su­al­ly refuse ad­mis­sion to a child who is a cit­i­zen of this coun­try,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

She said the min­istry stands ready to as­sist Ish­mael in any way “once his sta­tus is prop­er­ly de­ter­mined.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark asked if Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered de­vel­op­ing a pol­i­cy to ad­dress the is­sue of state­less chil­dren. Gads­by-Dol­ly said there is a law that deals with for­eign na­tion­als. She said many for­eign na­tion­als were in schools af­ter fol­low­ing the re­quired process.

As for state­less chil­dren, she said there are pro­ce­dures, and par­ents must get their chil­dren’s doc­u­ments.