Guyana-born Venezuelan in TT: ‘I wasn’t allowed to register’

Jun 11, 2019 News

Trinidad (Newsday.co.tt) -Born in Guyana, Venezuela citizen 43-year-old Greensley Lael Edson Henry is hoping to register today at the San Fernando centre for immigrants, two days after he said immigration officials denied him from doing so in Port of Spain.

Guyana-born, naturalised Venezuelan, Greensley Lael Henry is hoping he can be registered along with other Venezuelan nationals in Trinidad.

Henry said: “I am here not because I want to be here, but because of the political situation in Venezuela. I am a citizen of Venezuela and I want to register like other Venezuelans.”
But, he added, “They told me to go back Guyana because things are looking good now for that country.”
Henry and scores of other Venezuelans waited outside Achievors Banquet Hall in Duncan Village yesterday to register in the amnesty drive.
The father of four told Newsday that on Saturday, he and his family went to the Port of Spain centre, but he was the only one not allowed to register, because of his birth country.
Showing his Venezuelan passport and identification card, Henry said he moved to that country as a child. His wife and two of their four children are Venezuelan by birth.
“I was living there, went to school and everything there and became a naturalised citizen. There were many other people born in Caribbean countries, became citizens of Venezuela and could register. What about me?”
Henry works as an air-conditioning technician and lives at Santa Cruz.