Providenciales, TCI, November 10, 2016 – Turks and Caicos National Security plan was filled with holes and now officials are seemingly prepared to plug them.
In a media release we learned that high ranking members of the National Security council met yesterday morning and are finally ready to deal more firmly with illegal immigration, documentation of hwo is in the country and how boats arriving with shipments to the TCI are scrutinized.
The bones of a nine point plan were explained and include a drive to find out who is in the Turks and Caicos; “to move with determination to establish the number and identities of undocumented persons currently in TCI. It was recognized that this will take time, but it must be a national objective.”
The NSC believes not knowing is tremendously hampering policing; many agree. It was in 2013 that the shadow Cabinet Minister for border control, Goldray Ewing said the same thing; that was some three years ago. It was at that time that the Blue Hills member also called for bio-metrics; the motion was presented in the House of Assembly and thought to be too extreme, but now Government is prepared to move forward they say with those plans.
The NSC, yesterday also explained that even if we have to lease vessels, the Turks and Caicos needs more hardware on the seas to police the borders effectively. The Turks and Caicos will now also move to schedule cargo vessels arriving from Haiti and the Dominican Republic; we had weeks ago been given Intel by the US that the two countries of Hispaniola are heavily into arms and drugs smuggling.
There will now be searches of vessels and cargo entering and leaving the country and no longer will boats just be able to show up at our door step with goods, they will have to follow a schedule which allows police and other law enforcers to be ready to go for searches.
Yesterday, the country also learned that the K9 unit is bolstered, we have four dogs now: Drake, King, Brutus and Jax – all trained to detect firearms, ammunition and narcotics.
