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Vital Stats Is Weakest Link In Immigration Security
posted (June 18, 2014)

The Vital Statistics Unit is the weakest link in the immigration system. Now that may sound strange – because the unit is not within the Ministry of Immigration – but you can get a passport with a birth certificate – and as the case of Marleny Castellanos recently demonstrated, getting a birth certificate, (or 17 of them) for dead strangers is not hard at all.

 

So, while the focus has been on tightening up the Immigration Department – what’s going to happen with the Vital Statics Unit? Â That’s what we asked the Attorney General today:

Hon. Wilfred "Sedi" Elrington - Attorney-General
"Those people, apparently, would have wanted to disclose their contact person, but his suggestion was that the police acted too swiftly in charging them. If you charge people who have information to give, many times, they're not prepared to disclose it. But, if you worked out a deal with them, they probably would have been prepared to telly you what the details are. It is something that is very worrying, but I will also tell you, my dear, that that kind of behavior in the Vital Statistics office has been going on from almost time immemorial. I know people who have in fact benefit from it. It's a big racket."

Alindy Marisol Amaya - News Director, KREM News
"Can you tell us what exactly you’re doing? Has an investigation been launched to identify where the loopholes are because it can’t keep happening?"

Hon. Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington
"No, we haven’t launched any investigation. What we have done is we have gotten rid of certain personnel. We’ve put in new people. We’re putting in an entirely new system with all kinds of security features now. As a matter of fact in a short while when you go to apply for your birth certificate or your death certificate you’re going to find yourself confronted with a camera and that is going to photograph you so that we know who applied when, and there can be no hanky panky. We are digitizing the whole system. We want that by the time it is completed - and it should be completed by the end of July - you should be able to go in there and get your birth certificate within 2 or 3 minutes entrance."

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, so what happens with the 19 birth certificates that it is revealed that Miss Marleny Castellanos is accused of facilitating? What happen with those?"

Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I think there is a legal action being proceeded with, with respect to those. And I want to suggested, that those - I am pretty certain - I'd almost be prepared to swear, that none of those were obtained during the time when we have been in charge of the Registry. It would have been some previous date, but I am not certain about it.

Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, but some of them were obtained in 2012 all the way up until 2013, so - yes that's what the documents are saying."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"Yeah, but I could go into the Registry right now, and apply for a birth certificate for somebody who is dead."

Alindy Marisol Amaya
"But they've been used wrongfully, and not for the people who they are intended for."

Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I hear what you're saying, but there is no law which prevents you, me or anybody else from going into the Vital Statistics office and applying for a death certificate or a birth certificate. That is a public office."

Alindy Amaya
"Will that change with these changes that you're putting into effect? Will someone still be able to get out a birth certificate in someone else's name?"

Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I think we may well have to look at the law, and I think it's perhaps a part of the process whereby I can't go and apply for a birth certificate for you."

Daniel Ortiz
"Marleny Castellanos and her common-law husband got identities of dead Belizeans in Benque, and then, they managed to get the system worked in which they managed to get other immigration documents. So, that is the concern. So, what happens to try to block those kinds of infractions?"

Hon. Wilfred Elrington
"I'm saying to you that we're presently in the process of putting in the identification system so that we know who apply for, and we'd be better able. I'm sure that we would perhaps be even more comprehensive."

Presently, 46 year-old Guatemalan Marleny Castellanos is on remand at the Belize Central Prison for 40 separate criminal charges in which it was alleged that she was the chief arranger of bogus documents in a ring of immigration fraud.

17 people have come forward to the Immigration Department claiming that she deceived them into thinking that she could get legitimate nationality documents for them through a legal process. They’re claiming that they didn’t know that she broke the law when she arranged for them to get their papers.

She is suspected of arranging documents for 19 people, those 17 clients, herself and her common-law husband. The story behind the documents for her husband and herself are compelling all on their own, because she is accused of stealing the identities of dead Belizeans from Benque Viejo, and then getting authentic looking fake birth certificates for herself and her husband, in which they then got nationality certificates, Passports, and social security cards. Her husband even managed to get a voters ID with the stolen identity.

Marleny Castellanos and her husband pleaded guilty for the bogus documents they received for themselves, but with the advice from their attorney, changed their pleas to not guilty at the very last minute. This now forces the Immigration Department to prove these criminal offences against them. She and her husband return to court on July 17.

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