Over the past few weeks - 7News has reported extensively on that immigration bust made on the Southern Highway on the evening of the 19th March. A police patrol intercepted a bus from Maya King farms with 39 persons on board, 27 adults and 12 minors. None of them had documentation and they were workers, or the children of workers on the farm.
Now, any migrant laborer who does not have his or her immigration documents immediately raises a red flag. But, there's something else that caught our attention. When the 39 were detained at the Dangriga Police Station - one of their handlers appeared - not with immigration documents but with police records for four of them. It's notable because many of these persons said that they had only recently come into the country. But they already had police records. We asked the commissioner about it today:
Jules Vasquez
"I want to ask about the official complicity of the department in facilitating the movement and the regularization of illegal migrants into Belize. I have here a number of police records which were presented at the station that night. These are police records for persons who only been in the country 6 weeks and have no formal status. They don't even have any documents. Someone showed up at the Dangriga Police Station with police records for 4 of them. I want to stress that these are regular police records. We know, I have investigated and I know that when a migrant or someone without permanent status in Belize applies for a police record, they get a special record. Thats a different kind of record. But these people had regular criminal regular records from the criminal records office and even many of them without their passport number. This suggest to me that the police department at a high level is facilitating the regularization of illegal immigrants. It may be facilitating persons whose labor is being exploited."
This becomes an issue going into amnesty, because if you are going into amnesty and you have a police record somehow you get a regular police record, then your foot is halfway in the door even though you only arrive here 6 weeks ago."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"I do not associate myself with your comments and somehow I believe that you are being misled or being used to create mischief. What is the purpose of an immigration amnesty program? Isnt it to regularize illegal migrants?"
Jules Vasquez
"But not people who've been here 6 weeks."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Just answer the question - Isn't it to regularize illegal migrants? Yes right. If you are in a country illegally and you want to regularize your status, certainly you are not going to have any immigration stamp. What normally happens is that when you have for example a regular migrant who comes into the country and applies for a police record, we would require that they submit to the records office stamp to show how long they have been in the country and that they are constantly renewing their status in Belize. It would be in sin for us to ask an irregular migrant to produce stamp to show that they have been in the country legally and so certainly we had to make adjustments in terms of the whole process of applying for the police record. Like right now, if a regular migrant would apply for a police record, the standard procedure still applies to them, but for the amnesty process we cannot apply that same policy, because these are irregular migrants. The police record just simply say that the person is not in our system. So, this is not to say that you are half way in and half way out. I think the most critical aspect of the process is the vetting that special branch is going to do and the vetting or the checks that we are going to run through Interpol, because every one of them will go through Interpol as well, because while yes the country seeks to provide a pathway for these people to be regularize, we will still have to ensure that persons that we are going to regularize as Belizeans that they are persons who meet the standard."
Jules Vasquez
"An amnesty exist to regularize people who have been trapped outside the system for 10 years. Your department is facilitating people who are just come."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Mr. Vasquez, so then if you go to the US as an illegal migrant and let's say couple years from now the government say we are going to have an amnesty to regularize migrants. If you go there illegally, what is there to show how long you have been in the country? People who are sending you these things, I don't know where they are getting their information from to say that these people have been here 6 weeks or 6 months. I don't know."
"They don't have no stamp in their passport to tell us how long they've been in the country or when they came."
Jules Vasquez
"It is by their own...."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Good. So, I can tell you, I can come here today and I can tell you I've been here 10 years. There is nothing to prove otherwise."
Jules Vasquez
"But a special criminal record will say applicant is not in our criminal record database as he has only been in Belize for 1 month. I have a special criminal record here. You are not giving these special records to these migrants."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Again, Mr. Vasquez, it didn't say that because those are regular migrants. They'll be a history in their passport to say how long they've been in the country. These are people who do not have a history in their passport to say how long they've been here. So why are we going to give a special police record to somebody when we don't know how long they've been here, so we have to go with the regular one based on what they are saying. Don't be misled by foolish people."
Jules Vasquez
"These people labor may have been exploited."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Thats a different kettle of fish. If that is the case, thats the reason why we have the human trafficking investigation ongoing."
Jules Vasquez
"You do not find it irregular that a person shows up at the police station, she shows up at the police station with 4 police records with 4 of the detainees. Isn't that suspicious, sir, that your department is part of a network that's - how does she have these people police records. I'm saying that your police department is feeding a network that is smuggling human labor."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Human trafficking, Mr. Vasquez, does not include the withholding of a person police record. It may include the withholding of a person travel document."
Jules Vasquez
"But its irregular."
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"Its not irregular."
Jules Vasquez
"How you will have my police record, sir?"
Chester Williams - Commissioner of Police
"You can come, you get a letter from Indira Craig, one from Cherisse Halsall, one from Mr. Novelo and one from Codie. Each of them authorizing you to apply for police record for them. You can come to headquarters; present those letters and you can lawfully apply for police record for them and you will be in possession of those police records until you surrender them to the respective persons. So, it is not irregular. Do not be consuming nonsense."
While the comparison is a false equivalence, we didn't see any point in pressing the point further.
