THE MIGRANT CRISIS: A SOLUTION

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: if you want to fix a problem, you have to go back to basics. Now, we have a serious problem in good old T&T, and that is the fact that we are being overrun by Venezuelan immigrants fleeing Maburro's murderous and incompetent regime. Look, we have a small population. Nobody seems to know exactly what the size of our population is, but most people (including me) seem to think that it is in the region of about 1.5 million people, so let's assume (though not necessarily accept) that this is a correct figure.  Now, Venezuela has (or had) a population of about 30 million people.


At the beginning of this year it was estimated that about 3 million people had left ... migrated ... from Venezuela, with the majority going to other Latin American countries like Colombia. Some had come here. But as the situation in Venezuela has continued to deteriorate that migration has picked up steam so that it is now estimated that some 3.7 million people have left that unfortunate country and that before the end of this year there will be an estimated 4 million migrants! Put anther way, that will be some 4 million people who are so desperate that they have left everything behind to start life anew in another country. And those coming here can't even speak the language! Can you imagine how desperate they must be?!  How bad the situation is for them to leave everything behind to come here?


And here is where we come in. With registration of Venezuelan migrants closing tomorrow (Friday 14th June, 2019) there is now a sudden rush to register. There are also unconfirmed reports that the number of boat loads of migrants from the mainland have increased substantially over the last week as thousands of Venezuelans are rushing to get some sort of legal permission to stay in Trinidad.


Now, nobody knows exactly how many Venezuelans there are here right now. And certainly, by Friday night, it is not unreasonable to  presume that only a very small percentage of those actually over here will be registered. So? How many do you think are actually here? Fiftty thousand? A hundred thousand?


You realize that it is quite possible that there could be around 75,000 Venezuelans over here (taking a middle number of between 50,000 and 100,000)!? In other words, very roughly, our population has increased by about 5 percent this year! Now, do you see the problem? The United States (which is far wealthier than we are) has a population of about 300 million. Five percent of that figure would be 15 million! But their migrant problem is not even a million ... and yet there are many (starting with their idiot of a President) who complain!


My point here is that it is crystal clear that we simply cannot cope with this level of migration and as much as any and every God fearing and fair minded person would want to help, we simply haven't got the resources to do so. And sending them back is inhumane. It is a little like your neighbor is beating his wife and children so badly that they flee to your house for protection. They have no money and no means of supporting themselves so you can't turn them out onto the street and you can't send them back home because the husband will literally beat them to death. But You can't afford to feed them! So? What in the name of heaven do you do?


Remember how I started this post about going back to basics? In the example given above, the best solution would be to go to Court and get an Order putting the husband out of the house and an Order that he is not to go anywhere near the wife and children. Well, this is my point with the migrants: the root cause of this problem is Maburro and his devastating policies and thievery  that have not only ruined his country but are now causing ours to be ruined. He must be made to go ... NOW!!  This migrant problem will only get worse if we don't help the Venezuelans to fix THEIR problem NOW! Because, not fixing their problem is only going to create multiple problems for US!!! And Venezuela can't fix with the Donkey and his cronies in power over there!


P.S.  Astute readers will note that I have deliberately not gone into the 'blame game' and how I think that this problem could/might have been avoided in the first place. That is a luxury that we can all debate later. In the meantime, let's fix the present problem now.