As you heard, Ruth Meighan is alleging a sophisticated level of fraud and forgery of Belizean immigration documents, in which according to her, the stamps on the passports for these applicants looked so authentic that they fooled even her as the Director. You also heard her say that the travel stamps which each passport gets from the Immigration Officers when their owners entered Belize were falsified and backdated to hide the fact that these 1-day visa owners did not qualify for Permanent residency in Belize. 

She approved these applications for permanent residency, when they landed her desk, based on the information of the vetting officers who were supposed to have scrutinized the applications and ensure that the documentation provided was accurate and authentic. 

Well, the Senate Committee didn’t just take her at her word for it, and they challenged her testimony. Here’s how the exchange went:

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett - UDP Senator
"One listed there has the Visa number 25636, approved on the 9th of November, and then the permanent residency number 43608 on the same day."

Ruth Meighan - Former Director of Immigration
"Yes."

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett
"So, who approves either of those? This one says that you approved the visa application, but where would the approval of the permanent residency come from? Who would have approved that."

Ruth Meighan
"It could have been either myself or the deputy, but it doesn't say here which one of us had done it."

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"That's why in the inception, I asked whether - what were your duties, and you specifically said that you were the person who approved permanent residency."

Ruth Meighan
"Yes, both myself and the deputy could approve."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"When you were not in, the Deputy would-"

Ruth Meighan
"Yeah, or at times - I wouldn't say all the time. There were times when she was required to assist with the processing of visas and other things."

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett
"I don't have an explanation that adds up-"

Ruth Meighan
"Mhmm."

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett
"How you can have on the same day, the visa being approved through a process that would require the director or the Deputy being involved in both processes, and the name, It's the same person."

Ruth Meighan
"My only response to that is that what I have in front of me, when I am approving permanent residency, is a photocopy of a passport that gives me information to tell me that a person has been living in Belize for more than a year. And, unfortunately, I really don't have the visa information in front of me, for me to do any kind of comparative thing with respect to a picture of a person, or information other than what is presented. I practically gave approval to these things on the understand that the information that was presented to me were accurate information. So, all the approvals that I gave was given on the information that was presented."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"If you have to approve the visas, and you have to approve the nationalities... how come the Auditor General was able to identify, in so many instances, persons that received their visa, and shortly after that, proceeded to get nationality, and then of course, they would get a passport issued, based on the strength of the nationality certificate. One wonders why. Why were there so many instances identified that these things were issued outside of the scope of the law in such short periods of time? For example, one of the ones I was going to highlight - the Senator had mentioned it - was that this person received a visa and permanent residency in one day."

Ruth Meighan
"Mhmm."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"And you were the person to have signed the visa approval, and also the permanent residency. So, how could that happen?"

Ruth Meighan
"I don't know if I was the person who signed the permanent residency, but I was the person who signed the visa."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"I see. But, you state that you would be the one to sign the permanent residency to, right?"

Ruth Meighan
"Yes, along with the Deputy, could also have given approval for permanent residency."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Your deputy being Miss Marin."

Ruth Meighan
"Mhmm."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"But neither you nor she would ever approve something that is not complete."

Ruth Meighan
"If it doesn't show that it is complete, no, we wouldn't have."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"So, Chair, perhaps what we need to request from the Department, then, is in the cases of these visas, or in the case of A1 and A, maybe we should begin the trail not only who approved the visa, but who approved residency, nationality - you don't need approval for passport, because once you have the required document... Then maybe what we should request is the trail, to see - we know who signed the visas, but we need to see who approved the residency and nationality as well."

Hon. Ashley Rocke - Church Senator
"This report seems to implicate you in relation to 1-day operations that are related to two vital pieces of document, 1 being the visa, and the other one being the permanent residency. So, in fact you are refuting this report?"

Ruth Meighan
"I'm not refuting any report."

Hon. Ashley Rocke
"Well, you said that you know that you signed one."

Ruth Meighan
"I'm saying that what I signed on is approvals that I give for permanent residency, were based on information that was provided to me."

Hon. Ashley Rocke
"It says that the visa was given 1 day, and the permanent residency was given the same day, and it has your signature."

Ruth Meighan
"Yes."

Hon. Ashley Rocke
"So I was asking you -"

Ruth Meighan
"I was saying that when I was approving the permanent residency, I did not have the visa application or information on the visa in front of me, what I had was a file that is a permanent residency file that indicated to me that the person has been living in Belize for over a year, that qualifies that person for permanent residency."