18 suspicious Belizeans waltz through P.G.I.A.

The Belize Police Department may be pursuing a criminal investigation and the Prime Minister is said to be considering his political options, but events continue to unfold that give the immigration scandal a life of its own. News 5 has confirmed that arriving at the Philip Goldson International Airport this morning via El Salvador was a group of eighteen Chinese nationals, all holding Belize passports. According to sources at the airport, sixteen of the arrivals–nine from the People’s Republic and seven from Taiwan–had passports issued on July first, 2002, spoke no English and had never before been to Belize. Only two appeared to be residents of Belize, who were returning home from abroad. One would think that after two weeks of intense media coverage some bright spark would have thought to detain the new arrivals on the suspicion that their passports–issued six full months after government’s economic citizenship programme ended–were illegally obtained. But no such luck, and tonight sixteen people who could answer a whole lot of embarrassing questions are instead enjoying the hospitality of their new country of origin. How long they will stay is anybody’s guess as at some point–legally or not–they are expected to migrate to the U.S.A.

In related news, a much-anticipated reshuffle failed to materialise at today’s meeting of Cabinet in Belmopan. The Ministry of Works, Transport, Citrus and Bananas is slated to lose Minister Henry Canton in early September and some type of quick action was expected with regard to Minister of Home Affairs Max Samuels as a result of the immigration scandal, but it wasn’t to be. Sources tell News 5 that Cabinet is not necessarily the venue for such announcements, and it has just been announced that Prime Minister Said Musa will speak publicly on the immigration issue at a press conference Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock.