It's been a week since 21 deportees have had to integrate back into Belizean society. As we reported, one of them was wanted for attempted murder, and a couple others were wanted for questioning. The rest, however, returned home to their families. But even though they weren't wanted by Belizean police, they still had to go through a long, arduous process, which included a trip to the police station in an old yellow school bus.
The PM says that if there is another charter flight of deportees, then the country will have to do better to welcome them back.
John Briceno, Prime Minister:
"We haven't gotten any notice and I think it's not a matter that they're going to tell us, oh see what we're doing, we're going to send more. I think that as they go picking up any of these deportees then they're going to send them back to Belize and we've always said, these are our citizens and we should welcome them back. I think we need to do better when they arrive to Belize because we had them go to the police as if they broke any laws here in Belize and then the media was also treating them like oh here are these deportees, in a negative light. And I think that's wrong, I think all of us should do better, we should welcome them, they're coming home. Yes, maybe we should welcome them at the airport and if there's any of them that went away because they were trying to run away from the law then we could deal with them but I don't think we should deal with everybody like that."
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