Guilty Venezuelans have no travel documents

The two Venezuelan tradesmen who entered Barbados illegally within the last year remain on remand at Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds for another 28 days.

Niconaty Jose Guerra, 33, and Pedro Antonio Cabrera Sifonte, 35, have been awaiting their fate after pleading guilty last month to disembarking without the consent of immigration when they arrived by sea and for entering Barbados other than at a port of entry between October 1, 2019 and February 16, 2020.

They were caught aboard a speedboat 25 metres off Heywoods Beach in St Peter with a large sum of US currency.

Today, Immigration Officer Terry Simmons told Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant that his department needed more time to facilitate the men’s travel back to their homeland. That process, he said, has been met with stumbling blocks including the fact that the convicts had no passports; several borders where closed at this time and there were no direct flights from Bridgetown to Caracas.

Simmons explained that the department was currently in discussions with the Venezuelan Consulate with a view of getting travel documents for the two to facilitate their return home once that is possible.

The non-nationals will return to the No. 2 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on April 16.

On the men’s first appearance before the court, prosecutor Kenmore Phillips revealed that Coast Guard officials acting on a tip-off, went to Heywoods, St Peter where they observed the men on a speedboat which was also boarded by a local. The officers intercepted, requested a search and discovered US$30,310 as well as $5,000 Bolivars.

The tradesmen admitted that they had made a “big mistake” but said it was “desperate” choice to leave their crisis-plagued country in an effort to support their families.

“Both of us are family men and we had to leave because of the crisis situation. We didn’t have any other means of supporting our family, so we needed to get out to find some way of supporting our family. Quite sometime has passed and we really need to see our families and we are asking to be forgiven,” Guerra told the magistrate through interpreter Bernard Cumberbatch.

Attorney-at-law Dave Porter also addressed the court back then and pleaded for leniency on his clients’ behalf saying that they were among the four million people who migrated from Caracas “for various reasons” during the political crisis in their country last year.

“I submit that because of the political crisis the situation created desperate measures. And because my clients sought to feed their families they saw an opportunity to travel and work in order to take back to Venezuela.”

He also said then that “due to the nature of that crisis” his clients left with no documentation as they seized the opportunity to provide for their family.