Kamla warns Venezuelan migrants: Obey law or be deported

FILE: Venezuelan migrants wait outside the Immigration Office on Henry Street, Port-of-Spain, to renew their permits in July. (Photo by Shirley Bahadur)

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says if Venezuelan migrants persist in committing crimes, her incoming government will deport all illegal Venezuelan migrants back to Venezuela.

The Opposition Leader said, “If the Venezuelan migrant community do not get their act in order and desist from engaging in criminal conduct, begin assisting the TTPS in identifying Venezuelan criminals and integrate peacefully into our society, my incoming government will take aggressive action against ALL illegal Venezuelan migrants and deport every one of them to their homeland by any means necessary.”

She said she would not stand idly by and allow more citizens to be terrorised and murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrants.

In a statement, Persad-Bissessar added, “Every day for the last year, there were reports of violent crimes being committed by illegal Venezuelan migrants against our citizens. I will not stand idly by as this current government has done and allow more citizens like Mr. Winston Thomas to be terrorized and murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrants.”

The 69-year-old was found dead in his car along the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway on Thursday morning after being beaten, robbed and kidnapped from his home in Penal.

Persad-Bissessar added that T&T citizens have accepted Venezuelan migrants into every aspect of their livelihoods while the migrants “pay no taxes on income, no national insurance, no health surcharge and therefore out compete locals for jobs as employers seek to cut labour costs.”

She stated that the UNC has repeatedly called for a clear migrant policy to be implemented by the state, but none has been put into action by the current government.

Persad-Bissessar stressed that the well-being of Trinidad and Tobago citizens must always come first.

She reiterated that “Illegal Venezuelan migrants have a clear choice to make, EITHER peaceful law-abiding habitation in our country OR deportation, there is no middle ground. Their future within our country rests solely in the decisions they make in the coming months.”

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