Migrants Encourages to Participate in 2022 Census

Diana Castillo-Trejo

The Ministry of Immigration is encouraging migrants across Belize to participate in the 2022 Population and Housing Census.  The data collected is used to better guide policies and services created for migrants, so, the more accurate the data, the more effective the response.  But, how has the landscape changed since data was gathered over a decade ago? Acting Director General at SIB, Diana Trejo shared.

Diana Castillo-Trejo, Acting Director General, S.I.B.

“How has the landscape changed? I think the results of the study that we did in September, the Migration model, will give us a pretty good indication of what we could probably expect will come out of the census in terms of the composition of the migrants, or the persons migrating to Belize. The age composition, ethic compositions, reasons for migrating that has very well changed over the past decade. So, I think the information we will be publishing in February should give a good indication of that. I will add, regarding the report to be published in February, there was some questions asked in that module, and these included things like the type of Visa that foreign born persons are here with in country, what their status was when they moved to Belize. I believe the regular and irregular status was used there. And also, what their current status is. We don’t in the census ask nationality status. I think worldwide it is pretty much accepted that asking nationality status to be a deterrent in participation, and we need everyone to participate.  However, we did within this model request nationality status, so there should be a count of persons who are in regular or irregular status based on what were able to collect in February.”