Eleven T&T na­tion­als were de­port­ed by the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment on Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty yes­ter­day, 11 out of 14 T&T na­tion­als were de­port­ed. They ar­rived at Pi­ar­co Air­port at 2.50 am.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, the 11 con­sist­ed of ten men and one woman. The lat­ter was de­tained by law en­force­ment due to two out­stand­ing war­rants lo­cal­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment said it re­ceived ad­vanced no­tice from the US Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE) and a char­tered flight brought the na­tion­als back home. The min­istry said they were processed by im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials in keep­ing with pro­to­cols.

How­ev­er, high-rank­ing of­fi­cers of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus ex­pressed con­cern over the han­dling of the han­dover from US law en­force­ment to lo­cal en­force­ment on the morn­ing of the flight. They claimed that no law en­force­ment of­fi­cials were present to re­ceive the de­por­tees or to de­ter­mine how they should be rein­te­grat­ed in­to so­ci­ety.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day on con­cerns raised about the han­dling of the han­dover, Gon­za­les said, “That is not the in­for­ma­tion I have.”

No in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed in the re­lease on the 11 de­por­tees as it per­tains to where in the Unit­ed States they ar­rived from, the crim­i­nal records they may have, or where in T&T they would re­side.

The min­istry’s re­lease, how­ev­er, stat­ed, “The rel­e­vant law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go are work­ing close­ly with their US coun­ter­parts re­gard­ing these repa­tri­at­ed na­tion­als. All nec­es­sary mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to mon­i­tor these in­di­vid­u­als as they rein­te­grate in­to so­ci­ety.”

The state­ment added that the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty while en­sur­ing due process is fol­lowed in ac­cor­dance with the laws of T&T.