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And while Hulse can casually dismiss the Auditor General reports, we’d beg to differ.  That’s because while we all knew that wholesale hustling was happening at the Immigration Department – we didn’t know the full extent of it, the names involved, and generally, how sleazy it all was, reducing nationality documents to something slightly better than used scraps of paper tissue.  It was facilitated by politicians, public officers, justices of the peace, and a host of ancillary players.  Of course, politicians are singled out for special scrutiny because, ultimately, they either, by commission, fostered, or, by omission, nurtured the culture of lawlessness that prevailed in the Department of Immigration. Â Tonight we’ll look at a few singled out for special mention:,…

Jimin Guan, he’s a 46-year-old Chinese national who was issued a visa on May fifth, 2013, and he got a Belize passport on June 13th – just one month later.  The visa was his gateway document – and usually Chinese nationals have a sponsor in Belize – someone who vouches for them – but he had none, he had better than that; the letter recommending him for a visa was written four months before he set foot in Belize, on 29th January, 2013, by Minister Erwin Contreras. Â  Contreras was busy on January 29th., because that’s also the day he wrote letters for two more Chinese, Weidong Li and Muping Chen.  Li got his citizenship eight days after he arrived in March – this usually takes a minimum of 6 years.  Muping Chen had to wait until July for his passport. 

Of course, in the grand immigration enterprise, Ministers requesting visas was nothing new.  Elvin Penner did it for a Paraguayan who had no passport photo, bio data page of any other documents, just an application and a letter from the desk of Elvin Penner. 

Corozal North representative Hugo Patt did his letter for two Hondurans in 2012.  While Edmond Castro did the same for two Indians two Nepali’s in March 2012. 

The auditor’s report makes it clear “we noted that ministers recommended and requested that a number of Asian individuals be issued Belize visas to enter the country. The auditor scolds, “since the law does not provide for minister to intervene in the visa process it was illegal for those ministers to have done so.â€￾

National Security Minister John Saldivar clearly wasn’t under that understanding back in July of 2013 when he recommended two Chinese men for their visas.  Both were in China, but 23 year old Xing Bai Wang, and 36 Yong Bin Wang had the same passport picture. 

Their applications were riddled with irregularities, but both visas were approved on July 24, 2013 with the then Director Maria Marin signing off on the visa. 

Of course, there’s still a lot more names and stories to come out of the report, and you can tune in tomorrow night for more….