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Saturday, February 15, 2025

Moonilal wants JSC meeting on deportations

by

1542 days ago
20201126
ROODAL MOONILAL

ROODAL MOONILAL

RISHI RAGOONATH

KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is call­ing for a meet­ing of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to as­cer­tain what led im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials to de­port 27 Venezue­lan mi­grants who had a mat­ter be­fore the High Court.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said the or­der to put the mi­grants, in­clud­ing 16 chil­dren, on a pirogue and send them back to Venezuela over the week­end was dam­ag­ing to T&T.

"They have dam­aged our in­ter­na­tion­al im­age and rep­u­ta­tion as a God-fear­ing, pray­ing and car­ing coun­try," Mooni­lal said.

Last Tues­day, po­lice de­tained the mi­grants in Chatham and kept them in a cell at the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion. Of­fi­cers lat­er trans­port­ed the mi­grants to the Ce­dros Po­lice Sta­tion. On that day, at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed filed a writ of habeas cor­pus in the High Court on be­half of the mi­grants. Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams sched­uled a hear­ing for Sun­day at 2 pm but Mo­hammed got word that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel were de­port­ing the mi­grants that morn­ing. On learn­ing of this, the court resched­uled the hear­ing to noon. When the court called the mat­ter, how­ev­er, a State at­tor­ney in­formed all par­ties that the mi­grants were al­ready in Venezue­lan wa­ters, lead­ing Quin­lan-Williams to dis­miss the case.

Yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said the ac­tion of the Gov­ern­ment was moral­ly, legal­ly and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly in­de­fen­si­ble.

"We de­mand an ur­gent meet­ing of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to in­quire in­to the cir­cum­stances of the de­por­ta­tion of chil­dren in a pirogue and then those very chil­dren and ba­bies, we un­der­stand, have been brought back to Trinidad and To­ba­go shores. This is bizarre and be­wil­der­ing.

"The ac­tion of the Gov­ern­ment to de­port while a mat­ter is be­fore the High Court breathes of con­tempt. It is now in­cum­bent that the chil­dren must be kept in a prop­er, sani­tised en­vi­ron­ment. I am sure that every cit­i­zen of Trinidad & To­ba­go of every faith, creed and race would want these chil­dren to be cared for and loved in the same way that we treat our own chil­dren and our own fel­low men."

He called on the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty to en­sure the mi­grant chil­dren were un­der prop­er care and asked that re­li­gious lead­ers and NGOs step in to en­sure they re­ceive the re­spect that they de­serve.

As for the State, Mooni­lal said the in­ci­dent shows a com­plete break­down of co­or­di­na­tion among the rel­e­vant branch­es of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. He said even if the Gov­ern­ment was us­ing the law, it should not un­der­mine the rule of law which dic­tates that once a mi­grant en­ters T&T and has a mat­ter in the court, the law pro­tects them.

"We must ei­ther ho­n­our the in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ments which we have signed on to as a na­tion or we with­draw from them. In any event, we can­not turn chil­dren away,” he said.

“Those chil­dren and their rel­a­tives are here out of des­per­a­tion, not be­cause they want to be here. If the law de­mands that they must be de­port­ed, then this must be done ac­cord­ing to the law, not while their mat­ter is be­fore the court to be de­ter­mined. The law must fol­low its course, but we must main­tain our hu­man­i­ty."

Mooni­lal said Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young and the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to re­mem­ber that they should treat their neigh­bours as they treat them­selves and as they would want to be treat­ed in a for­eign land.


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