After 3 days of fighting with the Immigration Department, a family of Belizean Americans are on their way to Louisiana tonight. They were scheduled to fly out of Belize from last week Friday, but because they did not meet the Immigration requirements, Immigration officials prevented them from boarding their plane for 2 days in a row.
Wayne Tucker is a Belizean American who has living in Cayo for the past 4 months with his 3 children and his wife, Lauren LaRavia. He's a Belizean American by descent, and so automatically, his children should also qualify for nationality. The problem is that up until 4 months ago, they were living in the US, and so he and his wife never applied for nationality in Belize up until a few weeks ago. So, when the 5 moved to Belize, their 3 kids didn't have their documents in hand, which according to the Immigration Department, made them ineligible to travel. They got an agent to do it for them, which is something which the Immigration Department no longer allows.
The Department is trying to clean up its image, and the use of immigration agents is discouraged because it introduces an often dubious third party to the equation. But this family did use an agent, and so the Nationality applications for their 3 children were not processed.
So, even though these 3 children easily qualify, their immigration status in Belize remained in limbo. That's why the Immigration officer in charge at the Philip Goldson International Airport stopped them from boarding their flight. This family feels bruised by the major inconvenience, because, according to them, the Immigration Officials were unjustifiably difficult. They've managed to straighten out the difficulties with the Immigration documents for their children, through the personal intervention of Diana Locke, the Director of Immigration, and we'll tell you how that worked out.
First though, the couple granted us an interview at the airport just before they were to fly out of Belize, and here's what they had to say:
Lauren LaRavia - Upset with Immigration Department
"On Friday, we arrived at the airport, we were departing to go to Houston, and then ultimately to Louisiana to visit my sick mother. We showed up, the boys and my daughter right now have US Passports, but under the law, it actually states that they are citizens by descent, and they shall have the rights of Belize citizens. We were never told that they needed the stamp."
"So, we go into the checkpoint, and we have their passports checked, and they said that we couldn't leave, that we needed to talk with Mr. Cano, down at arrivals. Mr. Cano is the officer in charge of Immigration here at the PGIA."
"He said you can either $450 to get the stamps, and that was the total for all the children. So, I assume that it was $150 for each child to get the stamps, or we could just not fly out. And, we didn't have the money."
"We pleaded with him, my son was crying, saying that Christmas was ruined. Our daughter is exhausted from this entire process."
"We also believe that our application for our children had been submitted, which it appears that it had, but it had not been filed as submitted, to get the actual certificate of nationality. We left the airport, and went home very saddened."
"At the end of our sitdown with Mr. Cano, and we had tried to plead with him - I'm sorry, our baby is exhausted from this entire ordeal - Even without looking at any documentation, really giving interest in our story, we were all in tears, and I told Mr. Cano, and his deputy who was in there that I felt that the Immigration process and the system in this country was inefficient and corrupt. And, he has refused to deal with us. We came back on Saturday Morning."
"Mr. Cano refused to deal with my husband directly."
"We were here, we were heartbroken. People were crying, and my daughter was exhausted again, we'd been here for several hours."
"We feel that we were the victims of targeted malice."
"We did not appreciate the way that our Belizean American citizen children had been treated, the way our family had been treated."
"We feel that it was deliberate and purposeful."
"On Saturday night, yesterday, and this morning, we were in contact with Ms. Locke. We went down to Belize Immigration this morning to speak with Ms. Locke, and we in fact, were able to get the stamps. We did not have to pay the $450. That was in fact never required for us to pay. We didn't have to pay it today in order to get these stamps, that are allegedly needed to exit the country. Ms. Locke, I asked her, I said that I had been reading through the Belize Nationality law, where it located that my Belizean American children need this stamp in order to exit the country. And, she didn't really respond. And then, I said, 'Can you show me in writing where it is.' She just said that it was a policy. So, we continued to work with her because we needed the stamps to leave the country today."
"On her way out of her office, I again, asked where this stamp requirement is. She said it was internal Immigration Policy, and I asked it was in writing, and if so, may I have a copy. It was unclear it is or isn't in writing, but she said she would not give me a copy. She was not required to give me a copy, and she was not going to give me a copy."
"We have Belizean American citizens that were treated with malice. Our entire family was treated with malice, and deliberate efforts to prevent us from traveling. We've incurred economic losses to and from the airport, the toll on our family."
Today, we contacted Immigration Director Diana Locke for comment, and she first clarified that the couple were indeed supposed to have paid the $450 that the officers were demanding from them at the airport. She said, quote, "I had the discretion to not apply the $450 as based on my conversation with Mr. Tucker, I was convinced that he believed the application was filed. I had every legal right to have requested that the fee be paid as the family did not exercise the option to make a claim on the nationality until this morning." End quote.
The Immigration Director told us that it is clear to her that Lauren LaRavia does not understand, nor did she take the time out to learn what the requirements and the application procedure are for nationality by descent.
She added, "Their agent... was unsuccessful in making the descent application because the children's original passports were required and he did not have them, he never informed Mr. Tucker of this and hence the children did not have the required extension of stay stamps required by law as visitors, nor the 6 month stamp we put in the passport as an administrative means to indicate that an application is in progress. The payment for nationality by descent receipt is also another means to demonstrate that an application is in process."
She makes it clear that the agent that the couple hired is the cause of the problem. She said, "Clearly in this case the involvement of an agent created this problem.
Hence the reason Mr. Cano was allowing then to pay for the extensions at the airport, so as not to encounter problems on their return."
Mixed into all this is that LaRavia became frustrated with the officer in charge, and it appears that she touched a nerve when she lashed out and said that the Immigration Department is inefficient and corrupt.
Now, the Immigration Officers say that she actually accused them of trying to shake her family down for money, and so for the avoidance of doubt, they directed them to go straight to the Belmopan Immigration Department. She denies accusing any of them of extortion, but did the mention of the dreaded "C" word earn her and her children an additional day of inconvenience.
Corruption is a sore point for the Immigration Department which certainly doesn't need any more public attention from scandals. We asked the couple about their agent, and the remark that LaRavia made, and here's what they said:
Daniel Ortiz, 7News
"You guys did indeed submit applications for nationality for your kids, but you all did it through sort of intermediary, some sort of agent to do it on your behalf. We're told that that is the reason why your documents for your kids were not filed because the Immigration is not allow for applications to be processed through some sort of remote process. You all had to have brought them in."
Lauren LaRavia
"Well, that's - Ms. Locke never actually expressed that to us. Actually, the agent that we used did go in, and processed my dependent permit which Ms. Locke directly checked this morning, and it is valid. They processed it, and she never expressed that that was in any way, shape, or form inappropriate, or unlawful, never at any point in time."
Daniel Ortiz
"The Immigration Department is under scrutiny for a Senate Hearing. They've been, as you said, called corrupt, and so one could take the interpretation that by using the 'C' Word, you sprung a red flag for them. It would be like I went to America and said, I said 'Terrorist', the 'T' word, everyone freaks out. I understand this is the reason why you were directed straight to...."
Lauren LaRavia
"I think that that's a false analogy, terrorism to corruption."
Wayne Tucker - Upset with Immigration
"Because we mentioned the 'C' word as you say, that our rights under the law are different, and they shouldn't be. Whether you use the 'C' Word or not, unless it is clearly stated, 'Don't say corruption, or your rights go away', your rights shouldn't be based on whether or not you used a particular word. In the case where you're saying if you're in a crowded theater, and you start yelling 'Terrorist', there's laws very clearly against that right, but if you don't want us to say 'corruption' when the Auditor General's report 270 pages says nothing but corruption, you should clearly put it on the wall, that says don't use the word corruption, or immigration will stop you."
Immigration Director Diana Locke noted that from her perspective, Lauren LaRavia was very rude even though she intervened personally to try to resolve their immigration issues. She told us that she suspects that if this is the way she approached the officer in charge, it certainly would have been difficult to provide her with any kind of meaningful service.
But, Locke has accepted the applications for the 3 children and it is expected that when they return, they will have their nationality certificates, which makes it official that they are Belizean as well.
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