Trinidad: Venezuelan refugees freed with no place to go

(Trinidad Guardian) Barefeet and cold, lit­tle Lu­cia Meza sat on the street hun­gri­ly lick­ing an emp­ty pack of bis­cuits while her moth­er tried to find ac­com­mo­da­tion for them to spend the night.

The five-year-old child was among 105 peo­ple picked up by po­lice dur­ing a mas­sive crack­down on il­le­gal Venezue­lans on Wednes­day. Among those ar­rest­ed were four Venezue­lan po­lice of­fi­cers and a fire of­fi­cer.

Meza had been on a boat from Tu­cu­pi­ta with her moth­er and sev­er­al oth­er chil­dren since Tues­day night. They ar­rived at Beach Camp, Pa­lo Seco be­fore dawn. They walked for two miles to a for­est camp where they were round­ed up and ar­rest­ed by the po­lice.

Thir­ty-five Venezue­lans were held at Erin, 58 at Beach Camp and 12 at Ce­dros.

Look­ing ha­rassed and scared, the Venezue­lans were tak­en to the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion where they were in­ter­ro­gat­ed. They were re­leased from cus­tody around 5 pm af­ter get­ting an or­der of su­per­vi­sion clear­ance from the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion to stay un­til Ju­ly.

How­ev­er, po­lice said more ar­rests are im­mi­nent.

While some cel­e­brat­ed their re­lease, many were wor­ried about where they would spend the night. A few of them were seen flag­ging down cars hop­ing to get trans­porta­tion to their des­ti­na­tions. Even­tu­al­ly, it was the me­dia who pro­vid­ed them with tele­phone calls and made arrange­ments to get them safe­ly to their rel­a­tives, friends and con­tacts.

The chil­dren, in­clud­ing Meza, sat on a grassy verge on the front of the Pe­nal taxi hub. Of­fi­cers from the Siparia Po­lice Sta­tion pooled their own mon­ey to­geth­er and bought them dou­bles, sand­wich­es and soft drinks. A busi­ness­man brought them wa­ter.

A few who used the Guardian Me­dia’s cell­phone of­fer to make calls were sched­uled to meet their con­tacts at var­i­ous parts of the coun­try, in­clud­ing Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande, San Fer­nan­do and Pe­nal.

Guardian Me­dia lat­er called Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh ask­ing that arrange­ments be made for them. At first, he said they could stay in the old Siparia pavil­ion but even­tu­al­ly the Ir­win Park fa­cil­i­ty was opened for them.

Last night, a fur­ther 12 peo­ple were picked up in the forests and tak­en to the sta­tion. A boat was al­so said to be out at sea wait­ing to dock.

The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has im­posed a crack­down on the fer­ries that bring in Venezue­lans at Ce­dros and since this more Venezue­lans are risk­ing their lives to come through il­le­gal points along the coast­line.

Among the places they used as hide­outs to await their con­tacts once sneak­ing in­to T&T are Dick­ie Trace, Aquillera Road, RE Road, Beach Camp, Erin and San­ta Flo­ra.

Since the in­flux in­creased, res­i­dents of these ar­eas have been very wary of go­ing to the beach­es be­cause of an in­crease in smug­gling, con­tra­band and traf­fick­ing.

Res­i­dent Frank Con­nell said the ar­rests were long in com­ing.

“It’s too much of them com­ing in here. The sit­u­a­tion is we do not know any­thing about them. We don’t know who sick, who is crim­i­nals. Imag­ine I can­not even go to bathe in Pa­lo Seco beach any­more be­cause the Span­ish com­ing in,” he said.

Con­nell ex­plained that the Venezue­lans were wait­ing for their con­tact per­sons to come for them when the po­lice ar­rived.

Vil­lagers stood in their homes gawk­ing as the po­lice pa­trolled up and down the road. They searched Beach Camp, Dick­ie Trace, Jack­son Trace and in the forests of Beach Camp, which is two miles away from the beach.

An­oth­er vil­lager who was heard con­vers­ing in Span­ish said it was a sad thing to see the mi­grants in this state.

“They look­ing for a bet­ter life, that’s all,” she added.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young last evening com­mend­ed the po­lice for the ar­rests, say­ing the ex­er­cise was in­tel­li­gence dri­ven. He said 93 Venezue­lans were ar­rest­ed in the ex­er­cise and were hand­ed over to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion for pro­cess­ing.

On Mon­day, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that five women were be­ing held hostage in a for­est camp and be­ing pros­ti­tut­ed for $400 an hour. Fol­low­ing this state­ment, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion De­onar­ine Bas­deo dis­missed the re­port as fake news. He said 22 camps were searched and no one was ar­rest­ed. Guardian Me­dia has al­so done an ex­pose on the traf­fick­ing of Venezue­lans in Trinidad & Tobago.