At least 82 Venezuelan nationals were deported to their homeland on Saturday amid concerns that among them were people seeking asylum in Trinidad and Tobago.
The Ministry of National Security in a statement issued late Saturday night said that 82 Venezuelan nationals including 29 women “were voluntarily repatriated…to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with the assistance of the Ambassador of Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago, Her Excellency Coromoto Godoy”.
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But the Living Water Community( LWC), a religious based organisation that works with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that it had received reports of Venezuelans being deported.
“At this point we are unclear if this deportation extends to asylum-seekers duly registered with the UN Refugee agency (UNHCR) as such, or who have expressed a desire to seek asylum.
“We await confirmation on this. The guidance note from UNHCR on the outflow of Venezuelans advises that states apply a protection-oriented response in dealing with Venezuelans in a way that reflects an understanding of protection as a humanitarian and non-political act, and as an act of solidarity with the people of Venezuela.
“It asks that states find ways to facilitate access to their territory, award official documentation, grant access to basic rights and very importantly, apply a non-return principle to Venezuela,” according to Rochelle Nakhid, the coordinator at the LWC.
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Earlier this month, [Chief Immigration Officer, Mrs. Charmaine] Gandhi-Andrews, told a select Joint Committee of Parliament that an estimated 2,000 Venezuelans have applied for asylum here in recent months.
The committee was told that in 2015, there were 29 male Venezuelan detainees, but one year later the figure had risen to 125 including 97 females. Last year, there were 45 men and 82 women. She said that on a weekly basis, between 150 to 200 Venezuelans come here by sea, some of them, illegally.
