The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has ini­ti­at­ed a probe in­to an in­ci­dent re­port­ed by Unit­ed States vis­i­tor Shon­tice McKen­zie, who said she faced an un­pleas­ant ex­change with an Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer up­on ar­rival at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Videsh Ma­haraj, and Deputy Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Ali­cia Acre-Youk­see held a vir­tu­al meet­ing with McKen­zie ear­li­er to­day from the Min­istry’s of­fices at the In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre in Port of Spain. McKen­zie de­tailed the en­counter, in­clud­ing her con­cerns about the treat­ment she re­ceived while seek­ing as­sis­tance re­lat­ed to her hear­ing im­pair­ment.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Alexan­der and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Ma­haraj is­sued an apol­o­gy to McKen­zie on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment, the Min­istry, and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion. Alexan­der not­ed the role of Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cers in set­ting the tone for the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence and said of­fi­cers must op­er­ate in a man­ner that re­flects na­tion­al val­ues and sup­ports all trav­ellers, in­clud­ing those with com­mu­ni­ca­tion needs.