Belize's Immigration Amnesty program is scheduled to start in April and to prepare the IOM is preparing immigrants to apply. They are setting up pop-up Hubs all over the country and this week on Sunup on 7 Office director Diana Locke and Program manager Jackie Castillo stopped by to tell us why the undocumented would be wise to take advantage of this opportunity:
Diana Locke - IOM
"They need to take advantage of it so that they become regular in the country and they can function just like any other person walking around contributing, moving from place to place where they operate businesses you can formally not be afraid to - we encountered a gentleman who is a farmer and he, he says he's been here since 2017 and he's been getting permits from the pesticide board, so at least he has proof that all those years he has that to prove that he's been registering every year and getting his permits and those sorts of things, but he can do that in a formal way now without worrying about dodging anybody and those kinds of things."
Jacqueline Castillo - IOM
"One of the things I've heard a lot of migrants mention because we do an intake when you come into the mobile hub and that is where we assess what your case is, provide you with information and that is where we also have the support of the immigration department. One of the most important thing people always say is I'll like to be able to have my child understand that I have an I.D. because they don't have a Belizean I.D, so it's almost as if their existing in a space and they don't have an identity and I think while they have made sacrifices to come here and integrate into the society, it makes them less vulnerable if they are able to access services without a fear that they are going to have any kind of discrimination against them, accessing health services with a Belizean I.D, registering their children for school, being able to register their children's birth, some people have challenges with that just because they don't have a valid I.D. Some of them have valid country I.D that they come with but they don't have a valid Belizean I.D. So, people talk about these things and you can see that they do feel vulnerable and it's important for us to see how best we can get to integrate, that's really the main focus of the project is to lower the vulnerability of the migrant beneficiary because can you imagine going to a country and you don't have any I.D. other than from the country you come from and then maybe you're not there by regular means and then you risk being found or being detained and unfortunately in Belize right now being found if you're irregular and you are detained, it's not, we haven't been able to lobby to make it not legal."
But, how do you know if you qualify?
Well, Locke out-lined some very specific categories of migrants who are eligible to get their documents in order for the program:
Jacqueline Castillo
"There are eight categories you can qualify under for the amnesty so we can encourage people to go on the immigration website, read up, see which category you qualify under, if you don't understand there are phone numbers you can call to get some clarification. It's in English and Spanish for persons who may need clarification in a different language and I know that we have been working on also putting it in Kechi because remember we do have persons who living down south who speak Kechi, it's not necessarily just Hispanic persons, we have persons who they don't see any border between Guatemala and Belize down south, so they cross over and they too need to qualify for the amnesty. So, we're translating the criteria, we have it in Spanish, we're having it translated in Kechi, so that they can read and understand which category they call under and we'll be sharing those on our social media but in the interim everyone can go on the information website and see the information there."
The next IOM hub will be held in Orange Walk on Saturday, March 24th and Sunday, March 25th.
