Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dami­an Ly­der es­ti­mates that there are over 150,000 il­le­gal im­mi­grants in T&T. 

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Ly­der ques­tioned the es­ti­mate of 120,000 il­le­gal im­mi­grants that was giv­en dur­ing a Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty press con­fer­ence last week. 

“We ex­pect that it is close to 200,000 based on the rate at which il­le­gal im­mi­grants are flow­ing in­to this coun­try,” Ly­der said, as he claimed that the low­er es­ti­mate was re­vealed by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts over four years ago and was re­cent­ly re-quot­ed. 

Ly­der al­so ques­tioned claims by new­ly ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds that mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices were aware of 15 il­le­gal ports of en­try in the coun­try. 

Stat­ing that the fig­ure was clos­er to 80, Ly­der said: “The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty iden­ti­fied 15 ports of en­try, but we know that there are many more.” 

Ly­der al­so com­plained that the Gov­ern­ment failed to take Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s idea for a se­cu­ri­ty dome, which was part of the par­ty’s man­i­festo in last year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, se­ri­ous­ly. 

“Our Prime Min­is­ter com­plete­ly missed the point to play pol­i­tics,” Ly­der said. 

He said that the dome was not a lit­er­al phys­i­cal bar­ri­er over our coun­try as claimed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley but rather an in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cept where­by the land, sea, and air space of the coun­try are si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pro­tect­ed.

Ly­der likened Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s idea to Is­rael’s mo­bile al-weath­er air de­fense sys­tem, which is re­ferred to as “Iron Dome” and is used to in­ter­cept and de­stroy short-range rock­ets and ar­tillery shells. 

He claimed that An­guil­la and Aru­ba had im­ple­ment­ed sim­i­lar sys­tems to com­bat their il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion is­sues and were suc­cess­ful. 

He sug­gest­ed that if the sys­tem was in place, there could be co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts from sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment agen­cies to ad­dress the prob­lem. 

He said that camps should be set up at pop­u­lar il­le­gal points of en­try and po­lice of­fi­cers, im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers, health care work­ers, and cus­toms of­fi­cers should be hand to en­sure that il­le­gal im­mi­grants can be swift­ly de­port­ed and con­tra­band items seized. 

He said that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty he­li­copters and Coast Guard ves­sels could be re­paired and op­er­a­tionalised to help pa­trol the air and sea. 

He al­so sug­gest­ed that the Gov­ern­ment should move to es­tab­lish an im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion cen­tre in South Trinidad be­cause cur­rent­ly il­le­gal im­mi­grants are held at po­lice sta­tions be­fore be­ing tak­en to a cen­tre at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port. 

He said that the sys­tem put cit­i­zens at risk as po­lice of­fi­cers with lim­it­ed per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE) had to in­ter­act with such im­mi­grants, who may be in­fect­ed with con­ta­gious vari­ants of the COVID-19 virus. 

Lo­cal de­tainees are al­so forced to share cells with such im­mi­grants in such sit­u­a­tions, ac­cord­ing to Ly­der. 

“We do not blame the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), they do not have the prop­er re­sources,” he said. 

He al­so claimed that he had re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that il­le­gal im­mi­grants were be­ing sum­mar­i­ly placed on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers in­stead of be­ing de­tained and de­port­ed. 

He al­so ques­tioned the cur­rent rate of de­por­ta­tions but did not pro­vide any ev­i­dence to but­tress his claims and in­stead called on Hinds to re­spond. 

“If you do not fix our porous bor­ders we will be back to square one. We will have to keep lock­ing down again and again,” Ly­der said. 

“I am not here to point fin­gers, to ar­gue or blame. I am here to beg. Yes, I am beg­ging that our Gov­ern­ment se­cures our bor­ders,” he added.