Immigration Rolls Out Quick‑Scan Card for Daily Student Crossings

Every day, roughly eight hundred students from villages in Guatemala cross into Belize to attend school, learning in English and taking part in our education system. But processing all of those documents at the border can take time. Now, the Immigration Department has rolled out a new border card designed to speed things up. Instead of long waits at the booth, the card can be scanned in seconds, helping students move through more efficiently while still keeping identity checks secure. Today, the Minister of Immigration walked us through how the new system works and what it means for both countries.

 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration

“The border crossing card is a new concept. We recently introduced it first at the Guatemalan border, but as it is only being utilized for the children who come across for school every single day. And let me make this very clear, they come across every single day acknowledging Belize is a separate country, and I think we have to accept that this perhaps is one of those phenomenon that you look at and say, this is what Belize is all about, welcoming others to our country. They’re not getting any residents, they’re not getting any immigration status, but merely to go to school and they have to pay their way in the institutions. It is something that is now streamlined on our side of the border. I know that officials, our diplomats in Guatemala, the Belizean Ambassador is working on their side to have it accepted, Belizean card accepted by the Guatemalan government. And so you might notice that only the children from Guatemala are using the border crossing part because it’s accepted on our side and on their side, they just accept the children back because they’re Guatemala. But in terms of the adults crossing, they still use the old foldout. Crossing document which is stamped each time, and it takes a very lengthy period for them to actually go over. And so we’re hoping that with some discussion on the Guatemalan side, they will accept the Belizean border crossing card because it’s something, like you said, it’s new, modern, digitized and it’s far more efficient.”

 

Reporter

“So the cast and who’s producing those?”

 

Kareem Musa

“I can get that for you. But those are produced by Belize. And we intend to implement it also in the Corozal free zone for all the workers that traverse each day to go into the free zone to work.”