By definition, immigration must involve more than one country; and a chain of nations lying in such proximity to one another increases the likelihood that several may be involved.

If voluntary compliance is adopted, to a greater degree, our neighbours too will find that life is a lot less stressful when prospective travellers take the simple precaution of ensuring their documents are authentic. They would be equally wise not to become drug mules, including using their bodies as containers for transporting illegal substances. Though this region is still predominantly free of illegal conduct in such contexts, evidence is increasing that we are hardly safe from being overrun.

Thanks to co-operation between Barbados and certain other states, Immigration Officers at Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA), working in conjunction with the Royal Barbados Police Force, are building an impressive record for being able to separate fraudulent travellers from law-abiding vacationers and labourers.

There are several instances of persons arriving at our air terminal who turned out to be drug couriers or to be in possession of travel documents obtained by theft, corruption or criminal deception or to have bought or rented bogus passports.

Media reports barely touch the tip of this iceberg. Our Immigration Department knows of various artifices used to fool its officers. Happily, they do not all succeed. We believe refusal to give such information the widest circulation may have something to do with a policy to avoid inflaming passions against visitors from particular countries. It is good that the department should adopt this caring attitude.

However, it does not preclude media responsibility to bring some balance to ongoing controversy about the level and quality of service our officers deliver.

Agonies inflicted on these security employees, whether at GAIA, Georgetown, Kingston, Kingstown or elsewhere are well illustrated by the recent discovery of yet another Guyanese woman carrying more travel documents than she could legally account for as she tried to get past vigilant officers at GAIA.

She was a victim of criminal intent or complacency born of habit - or both. In the event, frequent arrivals made her such a familiar face, one quite different from those in the passports, that the fraud was uncovered.

It is entirely right and proper that people in these countries should express concern that all arrivals, wherever they originate, be treated with respect and dignity. This is doubtless what persons working at our ports of entry do even under the severest criticism by ill-informed commentators or provocation by some travellers.

Still, when scams are detected it is asking a lot of any honest worker to turn a blind eye, to be less than vigilant thereby enabling the intended deception to succeed. Readers can draw their own conclusions about the above case. They are also free to make a judgement based on yet another in a series of cases in which body language betrayed a narcotics courier.

On a tip from Immigration he was apprehended, taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and passed out a large quantity of sealed marijuana.

The Immigration Department deserves commendation, not condemnation.