An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A joint ex­er­cise which saw sev­er­al arms of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty work­ing to­geth­er yes­ter­day morn­ing re­sult­ed in 200 Venezue­lan na­tion­als be­ing de­tained af­ter it was dis­cov­ered they were un­doc­u­ment­ed.

The de­tainees were held as they par­tied at a pop­u­lar bar along the West­ern Main Road, St James.

The group, which in­clud­ed peo­ple be­tween the ages of 17 to 46, were sub­se­quent­ly tak­en to the He­li­port, Ch­aguara­mas.

The ex­er­cise sanc­tioned by ACP Ma­haraj, co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr Supt Hen­ry, and spear­head­ed by In­sp David­son and Sgt Adams al­so in­clud­ed mem­bers of the De­fence Force as well as the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion.

Of­fi­cials car­ried out the raid be­tween 1.30 am and noon yes­ter­day, and in­ter­viewed the at­ten­dees who were re­port­ed­ly guests at a birth­day par­ty host­ed by the man­ag­er of the es­tab­lish­ment and an­oth­er busi­ness own­er.

Among them were sev­er­al male in­di­vid­u­als dressed as women.

Of­fi­cials said a fi­nal count re­sult­ed in 96 males and 95 fe­males be­ing de­tained, as they were sus­pect­ed to be il­le­gal im­mi­grants af­ter fail­ing to pro­duce any doc­u­ments per­mit­ting them to be in T&T.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer yes­ter­day con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that they were con­duct­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions to as­cer­tain whether there were any breach­es of the law as it re­lates to the li­cence un­der which the busi­ness is be­ing op­er­at­ed.

Re­fer­ring to the ex­er­cise as an act of re­foule­ment yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Criston J Williams said, “From my un­der­stand­ing, many of them are hold­ers of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards is­sued by the UN­HCR. And this pro­vides in­ter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion for that in­di­vid­ual not to be forced to re­turn to their coun­try.”

The Quan­tum Le­gal head said the raid and sub­se­quent de­ten­tion of peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly those grant­ed per­mis­sion by the UN­HCR, was con­trary to in­ter­na­tion­al law and could ad­verse­ly af­fect T&T’s stand­ing glob­al­ly.

Williams chal­lenged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil to break his si­lence on the mat­ter and say de­fin­i­tive­ly if this coun­try in­tend­ed to with­draw from the 1951 Refugee Con­ven­tion.

Mean­while, lo­cal ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­lez ex­pressed sad­ness and anger over the sit­u­a­tion.

Ad­mit­ting she was aware of the raid, she claimed, “My in­for­ma­tion is that many of them are asy­lum seek­ers who are here in tran­sit to places like Cana­da.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the au­thor­i­ties had a job to do, she said, “This is heart­break­ing.”

She de­fend­ed them, “They are not break­ing any oth­er laws, yet they are be­ing ar­rest­ed and de­tained like crim­i­nals, and most like­ly they will be de­port­ed.”

Point­ing to the record num­ber of mur­ders and oth­er crimes be­ing com­mit­ted, she an­gri­ly de­mand­ed law­men stop tar­get­ing mi­grants and la­belling them crim­i­nals.

She said the State had more se­ri­ous is­sues to ad­dress than un­doc­u­ment­ed peo­ple en­joy­ing a night out.

Gon­za­les claimed some of the de­tainees had been grant­ed amnesty, but had not been in pos­ses­sion of their “cards” when held yes­ter­day.

Last week, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad, while dis­miss­ing a hy­brid ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion law­suit brought by a Venezue­lan refugee who was or­dered to be de­port­ed by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds in March, said asy­lum seek­ers and refugees can be de­port­ed from this coun­try de­spite T&T be­ing a sig­na­to­ry to a Unit­ed Na­tions Con­ven­tion that ad­vis­es against such ac­tion.