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.