Derek Achong

A group of Venezue­lan mi­grant women and chil­dren, who were de­port­ed from Trinidad and To­ba­go on Sun­day morn­ing al­though le­gal pro­ceed­ings were pend­ing, could not be re­turned to this coun­try pur­suant to a court or­der yes­ter­day.

When the case was called vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams yes­ter­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Regi­nald Ar­mour, who led the le­gal team for sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies, in­di­cat­ed that the group could not be re­turned as or­dered as they were al­ready on La Bar­ra Isle, which is lo­cat­ed in Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters.

Ar­mour al­so ex­plained that their cur­rent lo­ca­tion meant that the habeas cor­pus law­suit chal­leng­ing their de­ten­tion by State of­fi­cials, could not con­tin­ue as the court no longer had the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the case.

At­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, who led the mi­grants’ le­gal team, re­peat­ed­ly plead­ed with Ar­mour ask his clients, which in­clud­ed the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, to com­mu­ni­cate with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to help fa­cil­i­tate the group’s re­turn her so the case could be heard.

Mo­hammed said she was dis­heart­ened by the con­duct of State of­fi­cials in the case, as based on her in­for­ma­tion two civil­ian ves­sels with the 16 mi­nors and three adults were afloat near the T&T/Venezuela mar­itime board­er when Quin­lan-Williams made her or­der for them to re­turn on Sun­day evening. She said she even per­son­al­ly called the T&T Coast Guard af­ter mid­night on Sun­day to give them the ves­sels’ lo­ca­tions at that time, as they were re­port­ed­ly run­ning low on fu­el.

“The Coast Guard would have had am­ple op­por­tu­ni­ty to make con­tact with the cap­tains to have the chil­dren re­turned to com­ply with this court’s or­der,” she said.

Mo­hammed al­so called for the State’s in­ter­ven­tion on hu­man­i­tar­i­an grounds.

“These tech­ni­cal­i­ties do not take in­to ac­count the best in­ter­ests of the chil­dren,” Mo­hammed said, as she not­ed that the chil­dren’s par­ents, who reg­is­tered to live and work in T&T un­der a Gov­ern­ment pro­gramme last year, were wor­ried as they were un­sure of the chil­dren’s cur­rent where­abouts and well­be­ing.

Mo­hammed not­ed that one par­ent was able to speak to her young son, who claimed he had not had any­thing to eat or drink since leav­ing Trinidad and was con­stant­ly vom­it­ing due to rough seas.

Re­spond­ing to the sub­mis­sions, Ar­mour said the court had to dis­miss the case as it was lim­it­ed to the de­ten­tion of the mi­grants by State agen­cies. He al­so said the course of ac­tion sug­gest­ed by Mo­hammed would not be pos­si­ble in the cur­rent cir­cum­stances.

“Their de­ten­tion is no longer a live is­sue,” Ar­mour said.

Quin­lan-Williams even­tu­al­ly agreed with Ar­mour and dis­missed the case.

De­spite the out­come of the case, Mo­hammed still re­quest­ed that the State pay her clients’ le­gal costs for the short-lived law­suit.

In re­sponse, Ar­mour not­ed that his clients were en­ti­tled to re­quest the same from the chil­dren’s rel­a­tives, as they es­sen­tial­ly lost the law­suit. How­ev­er, he said his clients were waiv­ing their right to make such a claim as they recog­nised the le­git­i­mate hu­man­i­tar­i­an is­sues in the case.

“My clients are not in­hu­mane,” Ar­mour said.

At­tor­ney Yohann Niles, who rep­re­sent­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, al­so sug­gest­ed all the par­ties bear their own le­gal costs based on the na­ture of the case.

Quin­lan-Williams al­so agreed and so or­dered.

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 were all found to be neg­a­tive. They were then held in cus­tody at sev­er­al po­lice sta­tions un­til their de­por­ta­tion on Sun­day. The mi­grants were placed on two civil­ian ves­sels and es­cort­ed out of T&T wa­ters by the Coast Guard.

The State was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Raphael Ad­jod­ha, Kendra Mark and Te­nille Ramkissoon, while Jerome Ri­ley ap­peared along­side Mo­hammed for the mi­grants.