Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing a group of 26 Venezue­lan mi­grant chil­dren and adults against the State have been suc­cess­ful in block­ing the au­thor­i­ties from be­ing repa­tri­at­ed a sec­ond time.

At the con­clu­sion of an emer­gency hear­ing which end­ed around 10 pm yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams grant­ed an in­junc­tion stop­ping a sec­ond de­por­ta­tion pend­ing the out­come of a sub­stan­tive law­suit be­fore her.

Quin­lan-Williams al­so or­dered that they be placed in manda­to­ry quar­an­tine for 14 days be­fore be­ing re­leased in­to the cus­tody of their par­ents, who are reg­is­tered mi­grants here in T&T, and with their par­ents in the cas­es of the mi­grant chil­dren whose par­ents were with them on the jour­ney.

The group is ex­pect­ed to be trans­port­ed to the mi­grant de­ten­tion cen­tre at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port to­day to serve their quar­an­tine. They will then be re­leased.

The case comes up for hear­ing again to­mor­row at 7 pm.

The emer­gency hear­ing of the case, filed ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to take place vir­tu­al­ly at 7.30 pm but was pushed back as Quin­lan-Williams was en­gaged with a pro­tract­ed tri­al.

When the vir­tu­al hear­ing did be­gin, Quin­lan-Williams not­ed that the case in­volves mi­nors and be­gan clear­ing par­tic­i­pants who were not di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to the case, in­clud­ing the me­dia.

Al­though Law As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Dou­glas Mendes, SC, told Quin­lan-Williams that the as­so­ci­a­tion had been served with the pro­ceed­ings and in­vit­ed to ap­ply to join as an in­ter­est­ed par­ty by the mi­grants’ lawyers, Quin­lan-Williams asked him to sign out as she did not share the same view of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pro­posed role.

In the court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, the mi­grants’ le­gal team claimed that the ac­tions of State of­fi­cials in de­port­ing them on Sun­day, breached their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to lib­er­ty, pro­tec­tion of the law and pri­va­cy and fam­i­ly life which are guar­an­teed to any per­son with­in T&T, in­clud­ing il­le­gal mi­grants. They al­so al­leged that the ac­tion breached sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al treaties and the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy to ad­dress Refugees and Asy­lum, which was cre­at­ed in 2014 and was not abol­ished.

“A per­son de­tained and more so a child re­tains all his rights and oblig­a­tions, save for those which are eclipsed by the pow­er that is grant­ed to de­tain. It is a most fla­grant and ab­hor­rent abuse of pow­er for the Re­spon­dent, its ser­vants and or agents to use the pow­er to de­port in a man­ner so as to pre­vent the Claimant from hav­ing ac­cess to the Court to seek pro­tec­tion and the en­force­ment of his guar­an­teed rights un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law and the in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions of the State,” lawyers said in the fil­ings.

The group was seek­ing an in­junc­tion block­ing their de­por­ta­tion pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the case. They are al­so seek­ing an or­der for their tem­po­rary re­lease.

At­tached to the law­suit was an af­fi­davit from a reg­is­tered mi­grant whose wife, daugh­ter and four-year-old son are among the group. In the doc­u­ment, the man claimed that in 2018 he came to Trinidad to find work to sup­port his fam­i­ly in Venezuela. He said al­though he sent mon­ey back home it was not enough to care of his son, who has a heart con­di­tion.

“My son wasn’t able to ac­cess food or med­ical care. If he had stayed in Venezuela, he would not have been able to ac­cess med­i­cine. He would have died from his very se­ri­ous con­di­tion,” he said.

He said he made arrange­ments for their jour­ney and made his way to a beach in south Trinidad last week to col­lect them. How­ev­er, when he ar­rived he found the beach de­sert­ed and found out that they had been ar­rest­ed.

“When I heard this I im­me­di­ate­ly broke down in tears. I felt like my world had col­lapsed. I be­came very fear­ful for my fam­i­ly, who was with­out me and locked away in a for­eign coun­try,” he said.

The group was de­tained short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing in Chatam last Tues­day.

The mi­grants, the youngest of whom is four-months-old, were test­ed for COVID-19 and all found to be neg­a­tive. They were then held in cus­tody at sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions un­til their de­por­ta­tion on Sun­day morn­ing. The mi­grants were then placed on two civil­ian ves­sels and es­cort­ed out of T&T wa­ters by the Coast Guard.

Al­though Quin­lan-Williams or­dered that the group be brought be­fore her dur­ing a hear­ing on Mon­day, State at­tor­neys in­formed her that they could not com­ply as the mi­grants were al­ready out of the ju­ris­dic­tion.

How­ev­er, the group made a sec­ond trip to T&T and land­ed in Los Iros on Tues­day af­ter­noon and was im­me­di­ate­ly de­tained by po­lice and tak­en for a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion. They were be­ing held at the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion up to late yes­ter­day evening.

The mi­grants are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ger­ald Ramdeen, Nafeesa Mo­hammed, Dayadai Har­ri­paul, and Umesh Ma­haraj. Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, and Raphael Ad­jod­ha are rep­re­sent­ing the State.