Migrants coming in with fake papers

Also present were director Jennifer Marchand and permanent secretary Jennifer Daniel. Initially JSC chairman, Port of Spain South MP Marlene Mc Donald, asked whether free movement within Caricom was “not so free”, and why? In reply, Thompson said it is hard to coordinate domestic laws between 15 different sovereign States, and there exists no overarching regional guide on how to facilitate free movement.

She then revealed, “You do find when you are looking at this CSME instances where fraud is prevalent.

Persons are presenting for example fraudulent skills certificates when they are seeking to apply. You are seeing persons who do not have the requisite qualifications or experience and they are trying to circumvent that by trying to obtain certain certificates by ‘other means’ which are not legal.” At that Mc- Donald trumpted, “Fake papers! Like Mr Trump’s (US President Donald Trump’s) fake news.” Thompson continued, “You also have instances where persons with degrees from institutions that are not accredited obtain skill certificates from other member States, and so on. There are other sensitivities as well that we must take into consideration when we are looking at these issues and challenges.” She said this country is now amending its Immigration (Caricom Skilled Nationals) Act to try to deal with some of these issues.