When we asked Director Zelaya for an estimate of how many refugees are in Belize, he told us the numbers are never consistent because refugees are always coming and going. And while some refugees have been in Belize for months, he explained that they must follow a process with every case. But he confidently declared that their department is not experiencing a backlog:
Nikolai Zelaya, Director, Refugees Department
"I cannot speak on what happens in a US court that is outside of my purview however I can say that under the safe third country agreement that we have with the Government of United States we will be periodically receiving persons who the US government sends here. These people have applied for asylum in the US and under this agreement they can now apply for asylum here in Belize. Keep in mind that it does not mean they are guaranteed refugee status they can apply. One of the conditions of that agreement with the United States government is that we will only be accepting persons from the Central American and the Caribbean regions. Belarus is nowhere close to us they are definitely not going to be accepted so if the US government requests to send persons that request goes through my department first and we would not agree to something like that under the normal course of things."
