BELMOPAN, Mon. Jan. 31, 2022– On Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade, and Immigration issued its fourth press release regarding the 37 COPA Airlines passengers who were denied leave to enter Belize on January 18. In this latest release, the ministry revealed that all the passengers have now left Belize, with the final 10 Venezuelans being allowed to return to Panama (their point of origin) after testing negative for COVID-19. Previously, the group of 10 had been accommodated at the Best Western Belize Biltmore Plaza Hotel at the expense of COPA Airlines after they had tested positive for COVID-19.
The ten passengers left on Saturday, January 29—one day after the UNHCR National Office- Belize requested that seven of the ten persons be handed over to Help for Progress (without security) so that they could seek asylum in Belize. This request, according to the ministry, was refused, in light of what occurred after eight other COPA passengers had requested asylum and been handed to Help for Progress. Those persons promptly left Help for Progress and fled to Mexico.
“The Government notes that these individuals [the seven passengers] never claimed asylum when they arrived in Belize. On their immigration declaration forms, they stated that they came to Belize for ‘tourism’ purposes. They had previously been interviewed by UNHCR and did not claim asylum. After eight asylum seekers were handed over to Help for Progress, at the request of the UNHCR, and allowed to escape to Mexico, these seven persons changed their position and wished to apply for asylum,” stated the ministry’s press release.
According to the release, the seven individuals had expressed to UNHCR representatives that they feared their lives would be in danger if they were sent back to Venezuela. And so while they were not granted permission to remain in Belize, they were allowed to return to Panama instead.
“The Government was satisfied that Belize’s National Security, the Region’s Security, Belize’s Immigration Laws, and Belize’s commitment to the Global Compact on Migration have been and would once again be compromised. Consequently, the seven (7) Venezuelans were returned on a TAG flight to the country of origin, Panama, as scheduled. The Government of Belize has not returned them to Venezuela, and these individuals are free to seek asylum in Panama,” it stated.
In a Cabinet brief issued on Thursday, the government announced that it would impose a visa requirement on citizens from three Latin American countries: Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic. The Government of Belize has been hypersensitized to the regional migration crisis currently playing out in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
In its Cabinet brief, GoB states, “Cabinet was updated on the increasing numbers of migrants arriving in Belize through the Philip Goldson International Airport from Panama via COPA Airline flights and using Belize as a transit point to move northbound.”
In recent years we have seen massive caravans of persons en route to the US/Mexican border, with hopes of crossing over into the US and seeking asylum to escape horrendous social and economic conditions in their home country. In order to curb the use of Belize as a transit point for illegal migration, the government has approved the imposition of visa requirements on travelers from those three countries.
When interviewed last week, Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde stated, “We looked at it recently. We have to be very vigilant, but we observed that recently there have been some persons coming in certain flights that don’t come here to be tourists, they are coming here without legitimate connection to the country, without legitimate reservations and are not necessarily staying here or at least not staying here and then leaving as they said they would. They are leaving by different means, so we have to be vigilant, and we’ve identified some problem areas, and so that is what the visa restrictions are about.”