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.