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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Time for a comprehensive refugee policy, says UNC

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NEWS DESK
1703 days ago
20201126
Opposition MP and Member of Parliament for Naparima, Rodney Charles MP. (Image courtesy Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago)

Opposition MP and Member of Parliament for Naparima, Rodney Charles MP. (Image courtesy Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago)

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Na­pari­ma, Rod­ney Charles MP—the UNC’s shad­ow min­is­ter for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues—is re­new­ing the par­ty’s call for a com­pre­hen­sive refugee pol­i­cy, in light of re­cent de­vel­op­ments in­volv­ing Venezue­lan refugees.

And in an of­fi­cial state­ment re­leased to­day, MP Charles al­so ar­gues that the new­ly ap­point­ed Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment on For­eign Af­fairs should put the mi­gra­tion is­sue and Venezue­lan refugees at the top of its agen­da.

Ac­cord­ing to the Op­po­si­tion MP, “a clear and well com­mu­ni­cat­ed refugee pol­i­cy” is need­ed ur­gent­ly, to en­sure there is clear guid­ance on how to han­dle sit­u­a­tions such as that re­cent­ly in­volv­ing the de­por­ta­tion of a group of Venezue­lans that in­clud­ed sev­er­al chil­dren and a ba­by.

The full text of MP Charles’ state­ment, fol­lows…

The UNC re­news five year old call for a com­pre­hen­sive refugee pol­i­cy — First or­der of busi­ness for for­eign af­fairs JSC

The UNC is once again re­new­ing its five year old call for a com­pre­hen­sive refugee pol­i­cy that is hu­mane, con­sen­su­al­ly de­vel­oped, ac­knowl­edges our in­ter­na­tion­al treaty oblig­a­tions and the skills gaps in our coun­try, is con­sis­tent with our laws and glob­al best prac­tices, and most im­por­tant­ly rec­og­nizes the lim­its of our ab­sorp­tive ca­pac­i­ty.

This must be the first or­der of busi­ness for the re­cent­ly ap­point­ed JSC on For­eign Af­fairs.

We can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate by “vaps” on this im­por­tant mat­ter.

If we have a clear and well com­mu­ni­cat­ed refugee pol­i­cy, then there will be no am­bi­gu­i­ty re­gard­ing our coun­try’s po­si­tion on a num­ber of sit­u­a­tions like­ly to arise with our Venezue­lan mi­grants/refugees.

On­ly then will all lo­cal and for­eign par­ties be ful­ly ap­prised of our pol­i­cy and the rea­son­ing be­hind it.

Lo­cal NGOs and stake­hold­ers like the TTCG, the TTPS, our Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, our Par­lia­ment and our cit­i­zen­ry will be in no doubt as to what is re­quired of them in a va­ri­ety of sit­u­a­tions, such as arose re­cent­ly with the de­por­ta­tion of Venezue­lans in­clud­ing chil­dren and a 4 month old ba­by.

As it stands our refugee pol­i­cy is de­vel­oped on the fly, seem­ing­ly by the PM tak­ing his own coun­sel, with­out full ven­ti­la­tion of the is­sues, and in re­ac­tion to on­go­ing events.

The UNC is al­so call­ing for the gov­ern­ment to have at hand crit­i­cal hard da­ta to in­form this pol­i­cy and a se­ri­ous pol­i­cy to lock down our bor­ders. Those de­port­ed re­turned al­most im­me­di­ate­ly.

As it stands we do not know the num­ber of Venezue­lans in TT. We are not aware of how many Venezue­lan chil­dren are born here and there­fore en­ti­tled to all rights of cit­i­zen­ship. Will we keep their chil­dren born here but de­port their par­ents? We have not giv­en thought to what will hap­pen af­ter the reg­is­tra­tion process runs its course nor have we pre­pared our schools for teach­ing bi-lin­gual pupils.

The Na­pari­ma MP is call­ing on Dr. Row­ley to em­u­late Bar­ba­dos’ Mia Mot­t­ley in the qual­i­ty, depth, tone, rea­son­able­ness and ma­tu­ri­ty of her ut­ter­ances.  PM Mot­t­ley speaks, ar­tic­u­lates and de­lib­er­ates in mea­sured, well-con­struct­ed phras­es — be­fit­ting a world class diplo­mat.

VenezuelansOppositionimmigrationPoliticsGovernment


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