Immigration Department Tightens Checks on Child Travel

When a child arrives at the border with only one parent, immigration officers must decide whether the trip is routine or whether something requires a closer look. Officers from across the country have completed a two-day workshop aimed at helping them make that call. The training focused on Hague Convention matters, Family Court procedures, so-called “single mother letters,” and court-imposed travel restrictions. It also gave officers practical guidance on identifying warning signs and ensuring that travelers comply with bail conditions.

 

Deborah Rogers, Chief Magistrate

“We have often come across issues whereby both departments overlap and we wanted to begin to streamline some of these incidents that we see coming up both in court and on the immigration end, particularly concerning family court matters, issues with parents traveling with their children, without the presence of the other parents. We know that the popularity of the single mother letter, that is a document that is highly requested from our family court and also to clarify some of the issues that we’ve been seeing in the compliance of bail conditions and the restriction of movements on accused persons that are actively before the court. So, we thought it best to bring in as many immigration officers as possible, from various offices across the district, to be able to sensitize them on the relevant legislation that affect persons that fall under the Hague Convention and other Family Court applications under the Families and Children’s Act. What we saw was that unless immigration officers actually had the opportunity to be present in court, there wasn’t a mechanism that could sensitize them and update them on what was expected from them as officers on the ground.”

 

Hague Convention Training Reaches Belize’s Borders

 

The 1980 Hague Convention on international child abduction is a treaty designed to protect children who are wrongfully taken across borders or kept in another country. It establishes a process for their prompt return to their country of habitual residence while protecting custody and access rights. At Belize’s northern border, immigration officers encounter children travelling alone, with one parent or even crossing daily to attend school in Mexico. Each situation requires officers to determine whether the child has the proper authorization and whether a court order applies. Immigration Officer Ernesto Kerr says training on the Hague Convention is now giving frontline officers a clearer understanding of the legal safeguards designed to protect children moving across international borders.

 

Ernesto Kerr, Immigration Officer

“Presently at the Belize Northern Border Station we do the facilitation of incoming and outgoing passengers, as well as court orders. We do operations as well, and, as of today, with this course we are actually encountering the Hague Convention. This comes perfectly in accordance with our daily [standard operating procedures] whereby we encounter families, as in single parents. We have children traveling alone with their authorization [letters] from parents. We even have situations whereby children are going to school, as in across the border, commuting every day. With this training today, it’s to assist us, especially in the process whereby children are traveling across the border with either single parents or traveling alone. Also, upon traveling [through] the border points, they need authorization from either parents, mother or father, and sometimes they need court orders. In reference to single mothers, their letter only serves for six months; also, authorization through a court order only serves for six months,… as we’re speaking.”

 

Officials say the training will help officers protect children while keeping legitimate border travel moving smoothly.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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