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Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"What we are doing is to treat those that enable the border the jumper that purchase the contraband items from the border jumpers to be treated as themselves having committed a crime to be treated in the same way as the actual border jumpers would be treated. So if the police get a report or for any reason have to enter a shop or private premises and the householder or the shop owner has in plain sight corona beer for example, that householder or home owner will be charged and treated as though he or she is himself or herself a border jumper."

Hon. Kareem Musa, Area Representative, Caribbean Shores
"I think we need to be very careful here because while the majority of citizens do not have any sympathy for border jumpers, the truth of the matter is we need to look out for the small man and woman in this country during this very difficult economic time. Many of our people, Madame Speaker, they are purchasing goods based on the price that they can afford and many times they are unknowing or unwitting participants. They are buying these goods not knowing that they are uncustomed and so I don't believe that we should be treating them the same when it comes to the penalty, as border jumpers. Because yes, border jumpers, you can prove they went across the border in order to bring uncustomed goods over to sell in the country. That is very straightforward and I think we can all agree that they need to be penalized substantially, but when we are looking at people who are found in possession who may not necessarily know the origins of these goods, how is it that we can now put this offense on par with being found for instance a firearm? So a firearm, everybody knows what that looks like, but how does an individual know that this particular bail of toilet paper or this particular biscuit or this particular chips is uncustomed. So how is it that we are now going to punish those individuals who may not know that these are uncustomed goods. This particular piece of legislation seeks to impose the presumption of guilt, meaning that if you appear before the magistrate, you are going to be denied bail and as we know under our constitution it is that you are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But right away we are sending them to Hattieville Prison."

Hon. Mike Espat, PUP Toledo West
"I represent right along the Guatemalan border, Dolores Village has been there over a 100 years, people want to buy soap, soap powder, why would they travel from Dolores all the way to Punta Gorda Town, ridiculous. When they just walk across the border and they could buy they soap and soap powder. We have to be very careful."

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"My fried from Toledo West seems to be suggesting that we are interfering with a way of life that these people in his communities go across to buy soap, to buy tooth paste, people would take a boat to go for medical attention and so in trying to stop that kind of activity we are interfering with their way of life, but the Covid has interfere with the way of life of the entire country. The way he talks is if as though anybody listening would not believe that the borders are closed."

"The member for Caribbean Shores and again I respect the spirit in which he rose, but made it seem as though you cannot get bail. You can get bail, just not at the magistrate court. We are not denying people bail. We are making it harder and this is as it should be if we are to get serious about this business. I keep asking what is it; we're going to wait until more people start dying? No man. We got to take a stand now."