Gail Alexan­der

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has dis­missed claims by US Sen­a­tor Robert Menedez that the US con­duct­ed “stealth” de­por­ta­tions of Venezue­lans back to their home­land through T&T over Jan­u­ary to March.

“As far as I’m aware there is no truth to the al­le­ga­tions that the US de­port­ed Venezue­lans through T&T,” Young said yes­ter­day when con­tact­ed.

In­ter­na­tion­al me­dia re­port­ed last Fri­day on state­ments by De­moc­rats Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Menen­dez, mem­ber of the US Sen­ate For­eign Re­la­tions team.

Menen­dez called T&T’s name when he sought de­tails on the “stealth de­por­ta­tions.”

This was in a let­ter writ­ten to US Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo, Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Elaine Chao and the De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

Menen­dez’s let­ter stat­ed: “New doc­u­ments pro­vid­ed to my of­fice con­firm that US de­por­ta­tions to Venezuela con­tin­ued via third coun­tries at least un­til March 2020, while the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has of­fered lit­tle as­sur­ance that it will not con­tin­ue to forcibly re­turn Venezue­lans to a regime the Unit­ed Na­tions re­cent­ly stat­ed has com­mit­ted crimes against hu­man­i­ty.”

Menen­dez ac­cused the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of “sur­rep­ti­tious­ly de­port­ing Venezue­lans through third coun­tries,” though US law pro­hibits forced repa­tri­a­tion of refugees to places where their lives or their free­dom could be threat­ened.

Menen­dez said the State De­part­ment “in re­cent weeks” had con­firmed to his of­fice in writ­ing that the de­por­ta­tions oc­curred via T&T be­tween Jan­u­ary and March 2020. It wasn’t clear how many in­di­rect de­por­ta­tions oc­curred. Menen­dez said the de­por­ta­tions ap­peared to vi­o­late a 2019 US trav­el ban pro­hibit­ing air trav­el to Venezuela.

Menen­dez asked for more in­for­ma­tion on coun­tries which served as third coun­try tran­sit points.

He al­so sought de­tails of US con­sul­ta­tions on Venezue­lan de­por­ta­tions with each gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­tat­ing their trans­fer “in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, Pana­ma and any oth­er coun­tries in­volved.”

He not­ed El­liot Abrams (State de­part­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Venezuela and Iran) said in March there wasn’t a com­plete freeze on de­por­ta­tions of Venezue­lans but the num­ber was “ex­treme­ly low—da­ta showed over 100 were de­port­ed up to Feb­ru­ary. In Au­gust Abrams said de­por­ta­tions weren’t be­ing done as it was un­safe to de­port Venezue­lans home.

How­ev­er, Young said of Menen­dez’s claim, “It’s a strange propo­si­tion. We nev­er agreed to any such op­er­a­tions. I’ve con­firmed with Im­mi­gra­tion that we have no knowl­edge of any such in­ci­dent.

“The T&T Gov­ern­ment knows of no such in­stance and cer­tain­ly didn’t agree to any such ex­er­cis­es,” he added

Asked about Menen­dez’s claim that the State De­part­ment had con­firmed de­por­ta­tions oc­curred via T&T ear­li­er this year, Young main­tained the de­por­ta­tions didn’t hap­pen:

“It would have to have the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proval and it did not. Nei­ther Im­mi­gra­tion nor me are aware of any such in­ci­dent,” Young stressed.

For­eign Af­fairs wasn’t aware of the sit­u­a­tion. Pre­vi­ous For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Den­nis Moses—in of­fice ear­li­er this year—didn’t an­swer calls. Nor did the US Em­bassy Pub­lic Af­fairs spokesper­son.

Menen­dez’s claims arose when the as­pect of Venezue­lans in the US is among im­mi­gra­tion is­sues is fea­tur­ing in the cur­rent US Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paign.

De­moc­rats con­tender Joe Biden has promised to grant Venezue­lan mi­grants tem­po­rary pro­tect­ed sta­tus.