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Friday, February 28, 2025

Judge orders migrant children’s release from detention

by

1556 days ago
20201125
Venezuelan mothers Angel Jimenez, left, Nahomy Aray, centre and Yemilys Del Carmen Cedeno Navarro with their children after they were released from the migrant detention centre at the T&T Coast Guard’s Heliport in Chaguaramas last night.

Venezuelan mothers Angel Jimenez, left, Nahomy Aray, centre and Yemilys Del Carmen Cedeno Navarro with their children after they were released from the migrant detention centre at the T&T Coast Guard’s Heliport in Chaguaramas last night.

ANISTO ALVES

Derek Achong

A High Court Judge has or­dered the im­me­di­ate re­lease of 10 mi­nors and four of their moth­ers from a mi­grant de­ten­tion cen­tre at the T&T Coast Guard’s He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion at the end of an emer­gency hear­ing yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Joan Charles or­dered their re­lease as she not­ed this coun­try’s im­mi­gra­tion laws and poli­cies do not pro­vide for the de­ten­tion and de­por­ta­tion of chil­dren.

As the mi­nors had to be re­leased in­to the cus­tody of rel­a­tives, Charles al­so had to or­der the re­lease of some of their moth­ers, who were al­so de­tained await­ing de­por­ta­tion.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that some of the chil­dren, whose par­ents and rel­a­tives are reg­is­tered mi­grants, were de­tained along­side the moth­ers and their chil­dren as they made the jour­ney to Trinidad to­geth­er and were caught by po­lice in south Trinidad soon af­ter. Those chil­dren were ex­pect­ed to be re­leased in­to the cus­tody of their par­ents or rel­a­tives who pur­sued the lit­i­ga­tion.

Le­gal sources told Guardian Me­dia that over the past two weeks, over a dozen mi­grant chil­dren and par­ents have been re­leased af­ter bring­ing sim­i­lar cas­es. The le­gal sources said while the cen­tre may still be hous­ing more refugee chil­dren and their par­ents, they can­not be re­leased un­less they bring a law­suit and have it con­sid­ered by a judge.

Al­though me­dia per­son­nel were not al­lowed to join the vir­tu­al hear­ing be­cause mi­nors were in­volved, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the Chief of De­fence Staff claimed the de­ci­sion may serve to en­cour­age more il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion from Venezuela.

The chil­dren’s lawyers sug­gest­ed that the sit­u­a­tion had to be rec­ti­fied, as it amount­ed to cru­el­ty and could af­fect this coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion. They al­so stat­ed that the trau­ma from be­ing de­tained at a young age could af­fect the chil­dren psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly.

Charles agreed and made the or­der, as she ex­pressed con­cern over whether the chil­dren were be­ing held with non-fa­mil­iar adults.

“More needs to be done...This sit­u­a­tion must be rec­ti­fied and prop­er pro­ce­dure and pol­i­cy must be made so as to fa­cil­i­tate the re­lease of these chil­dren from cus­tody,” Charles said.

As part of her or­ders, Charles di­rect­ed that the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty per­form an as­sess­ment of the homes the chil­dren and adults would be go­ing to and re­port back to her in 21 days.

The de­ci­sion in the case came hours af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young high­light­ed the fa­cil­i­ty as part of Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to tack­le il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion hu­mane­ly and safe­ly. Young al­so not­ed the fa­cil­i­ty was built with as­sis­tance from the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment.

“Any­one who is sug­gest­ing that these are in­hu­mane fa­cil­i­ties and that is be­ing sug­gest­ed right now in the courts, that these fa­cil­i­ties are not suit­able, I have vis­it­ed the fa­cil­i­ties at the He­li­port and they are very suit­able fa­cil­i­ties,” Young said.

“We are not putting peo­ple in in­hu­mane or risky sit­u­a­tions.”

The chil­dren were rep­re­sent­ed by Criston J Williams, Jerome Ri­ley and Ker­ri­na Samdeo. Deputy So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al Neal Byam rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Shar­lene Jag­ger­nauth the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.


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