Belize western border station is operating at less than a hundred percent tonight - because for the second day in a row disgruntled immigration officers have staged a sickout. Yesterday, eight officers were out, and today, 10 officers were out.
Reports indicate they are disgruntled and dissatisfied with their current port commander. But the CEO of the Ministry Tanya Santos says that neither she nor the director of immigration have received any formal or informal complaint or grievance.
So now they are struggling to move staff around to keep the western border moving, but that has been a challenge. We spoke to her an hour ago via Zoom:
Tanya Santos, CEO, Ministry of Immigration
"Yes it does appear to be a coordinated sickout and we are actually looking and investigating to see if it is indeed so. At the point that I am today, the position I stand today is that I am unaware of any complaint of any grievance of these officers for them to attempt to do a sickout, industrial action such as a sickout."
Jules Vasquez:
"I have received reports that in fact it is an act of protest, it is staged in protest of the port commander who they feel has an authoritarian management style."
Tanya Santos, CEO, Ministry of Immigration
"I have heard that from the media actually so you're getting the same information as I am getting because like I said, internally to my desk, I have not received any such information from these officers at the western border. As a matter of fact, as far as I am aware, the director has been there several times and for this level of action to be taken, if it is that it is a coordinated action, we have not been briefed of any serious matter there to that level."
"Thankfully reports are that the movement of people is reduced, I'm verifying this information with our database, our Midas database to see if indeed the number of travelers has decreased and we believe so primarily because of the security issues up in Mexico so we don't see the same amount of people passing through as in past years this time of year."
"It's been manageable, if it continues this way we should be able to manage that but we have taken steps, bringing in officers who are off duty, reaching out to other officers from other stations who won't have the same level of travelers at their ports or none at all and getting the support going."
"I can't speak with them now because they're all sick, I have to wait until they get off their sick leave and they're all present at the port to call in everybody including the port commander and find out, get to the bottom of what's going on here."
Santos told us yesterday that this "holding the port hostage" is a pattern of behavior with certain officers at various ports, and she said "we cannot keep going through this." That's why she says the department is "exploring the option of training police officers to take over the border posts when they are abandoned by officers. She said she plans to meet with the officers who called in sick to see what their grievance is - that is when they get off their sick leave.
