The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has slashed the num­ber of work per­mits is­sued to Venezue­lans from 4,275 in 2024 to a mere 757 this year. This re­flects a de­cline of 3,518 per­mits, or an 82 per cent de­crease.

The min­istry’s web­site showed that on­ly two tranch­es of per­mits were ap­proved for re-reg­is­tered Venezue­lan na­tion­als this year. The first tranche of 480 per­mits was due for col­lec­tion from March 25 to 28, fol­lowed by a sec­ond tranche of 277 per­mits that were dis­trib­uted be­tween June 9 and 11. These per­mits will be valid un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2025.

Be­tween Feb­ru­ary and Au­gust 2024, the min­istry ap­proved and dis­trib­uted five tranch­es to­talling 4,275 per­mits. In 2023, 4,247 per­mits were hand­ed out, even though then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­vealed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,000 Venezue­lans had reg­is­tered that year.