The two Cape Class which the Trinidad and Tobago government purchased from Australia last year are due to be handed over soon, and will be used to strengthen the country’s capacity to protect borders.

The announcement came from National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds on Sunday, as he addressed heightened concerns about illegal immigration, sparked by a video which was widely spread online over the weekend, purporting to be Venezuelan migrants entering T&T’s shores.

Fact checking has verified that the video was, in fact, footage of Dominicans illegally entering Puerto Rico.

Nevertheless, Hinds said the issue of illegal migration of Venezuelans to Trinidad has been an issue going back decades.

He gave no commitment on a timeline except that the vessels are due to arrive “very soon”.

“I will not venture a date, because I don’t have the date in my backpacker and in any event if I did, the way business works, the way weather works, the way circumstances work, that date could change and I know in Trinidad and Tobago that date will become a very big issue. Suffice it to say, that we will expect these vessels very soon,” Hinds said.

“And they will join the fleet that the Coast Guard has at its disposal and make our capacity to interdict and to treat with our border issues far better,” he added.

Hinds noted that Cape Class vessels which are currently in use by the Coast Guard were purchased in 2009 and have “outlived their usefulness”.