One of the most successful projects launched in partnership with the IOM, has been Belize's immigration amnesty program. They have assisted well over 5,000 migrants through the program and Locke told us more about what all they managed to achieve.
Diana Locke, Head of Office, IOM Belize
"So, for the amnesty, I could share with you that we, IOM in the field, we saw 5,600 persons through our migrant centers, which we have four, we had four of those that ended with the USAID program. We also saw persons - when you total what they saw and what we did in the field - came up to 8,000 persons. We have been able to verify with the government that out of those 8,000 persons, we assisted in the field, 6,000 persons submitted an application. And so we know that there is a number out there somewhere that did not for some reason or the other, did not submit the application. And that is a discussion that started another discussion with the government of what can we do to address those 2,000 persons that we know we saw, and there are others that we have found over time. The indications are that the government would consider another form of amnesty. I wouldn't want to say amnesty because that entails a large number. But this is not a large number. We're talking about maybe less, 5,000 or less persons. And so we could be looking at a regularization depending on what the government decides to do. As of, I think yesterday I was told that there is a little bit under 300 files left to be completed. There's over 10,500 approvals. There's a little bit over 300 denials. And so we're monitoring that very closely because we had continued to support that over time, making sure people got access to the approvals, trying to see how we can source funding for people who are not able to cover the cost of the amnesty. We got some support from Unicef. They contributed $38,000, and we were able to support 106 persons from that, primarily women and children. And so we're looking for, possible other sources of funds that when the amnesty actually closes, that government, and they said it's ending for persons who can't pay that we could try to see how we can get funding to help them with that."
