Caribbean Immigration Officials will gather later this week in the
Haitian capital for the first Regional Consultations Meeting
"Tackling Travel Document Fraud: Challenges and Responses".

The two-day event, which opens on 6 December, is the first in a
series of cross-border seminars and consultations addressing
migration and security and border control issues in the Caribbean,
and are part of IOM’s Capacity Building in Migration
Management (CBMM) programme in Haiti.

Senior immigration and law enforcement officials from the
Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Turks and
Caicos (United Kingdom) will discuss regional cooperation to
improve migration management and border security challenges facing
the Caribbean.

The post-9/11 years have demonstrated that combating terrorism,
trans-border crime and migration violations cannot be effectively
achieved through unilateral or even bilateral measures but instead
require coordination, data sharing and concerted multilateral
action. 

Although the Caribbean region has been spared of major terrorist
threats, the documented presence of migrant smuggling and human
trafficking, as well as the illicit trafficking of goods, remain
significant concerns for regional security and stability. 

Because there are few cross-border cooperation mechanisms on
migration matters in the Greater Antilles, the IOM CBMM project
aims to boost cross-border cooperation, and in the longer run,
information sharing between the participating countries in the
region on migration and border security issues.

Areas to be addressed include visa policy and physical security
measures, automated migrant processing systems, inter-agency
cooperation and data sharing, newly evolving biometric developments
and the role of border control in preventing terrorism and
trans-border crime.

The IOM-organized consultations also offer a strong hands-on
approach and focus on technical challenges that immigration
officers face in their daily work.  The participants will
spend the second day in the field at a checkpoint on the Dominican
Republic border and at the Port-au-Prince International Airport
discussing document fraud challenges and solutions in a real
working environment.

The first meeting in Port-au-Prince is expected to adopt a
roadmap for future meetings, study visits and other activities that
will further regional cooperation between immigration agencies on
topics of common interest and concern. 

The CBMM project is funded by the Foreign Affairs and
International Trade Canada's Stabilization and Reconstruction Task
Force (START).

For further information, please contact:

Erik Slavenas

IOM Port-au-Prince

Tel: +509.245.5153

E-mail: "mailto:eslavenas@iom.int">eslavenas@iom.int