After spending 30 days detained at the Heliport in Chaguaramas, a High Court judge has ordered that 64 Venezuelan migrants be released and not be deported pending determination of their application for judicial review.
The matter came up for hearing before Justice Ricky Rahim yesterday afternoon.
A team of attorneys, including Elton Prescott, SC, as well as officials from Quantum Legal Law Firm, including Criston J Williams, Baine Sobrian and Shivanand Mohan, represented the group, which includes women and children.
The attorneys had filed an application for judicial review on behalf of their clients, asking that the Minister of National Security be restrained from deporting the 64 migrants, as well as having the minister give them permission to remain in this country after they are released.
In the alternative, they wanted an order for their release on orders of supervision pending their application before the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for asylum seeker/refugee status.
Part of the application also surrounds detaining the migrants at the Heliport in Chaguaramas, even though at the time they were placed there, the facility was not approved by the National Security Minister as a detention station.
The initial purpose of the facility was for the quarantining of migrants who had contracted Covid-19.
Justice Rahim yesterday declared that the application for judicial review was deemed fit for hearing during the court’s vacation period.
He also ordered that the migrants be released on orders of supervision, and that the State is restrained from enforcing any deportation order against the 64 migrants until the determination of the claim.
“Permission is granted to the applicants to file a claim for judicial review for an order of mandamus that the Respondent/Intended Defendant be compelled to consider whether the applicants should be placed on orders of supervision pending deportation and paragraphs 14, 15, 16 and 17 of the substantive relief set out in the application filed August 2, 2023, on the condition that the applicants file a claim for Judicial Review within 14 days of the date hereof.
“The Respondent/Intended Defendant is restrained from enforcing the orders of deportation against the applicants until a determination of the claim. The Respondent/Intended Defendant shall forthwith issue orders of supervision for each Applicant/Intended Claimant pending determination of the claim,” the orders read.
However, it was clarified that the deportation orders had not been set aside but remained valid. Rather, an interim declaration was made that it should not be acted on unless set aside by the court upon determination of the claim or revocation by the Minister of National Security.
The matter will now proceed to a case management conference on a date and time to be set by the docketed judge, Justice Quinlan Williams.
For now, the costs of the interim relief proceedings have been reserved.
The process to release the 64 migrants began yesterday afternoon shortly after the matter was called.
The application
In the application for judicial review, the attorneys are seeking leave for the court to judicially review the State’s failure to release the 64 migrants pending the determination of their claim to refugee/asylum seeker status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Trinidad and Tobago; as well as to judicially review the continued and ongoing detention of the migrants at the Heliport Immigration Station.
The attorneys claimed the actions of the State, by continuing to detain the group, “represent a breach of the United Nations Human Rights Due Diligence Policy, which will engage the United Nations, duty bound by charter, to intervene in cases of suspected allegations of funding used to perpetuate Gross Violations of Human Rights”.
The attorneys stated that from their instructions, the migrants were being housed in “inhumane conditions” at the Heliport.
The attorneys also argued that this case was one of particular importance and public interest due to recent US reports.
“The action of the State has funding implications from the United States of America because of the 2023 United States Human Rights Trafficking In Persons Report, as well as credible sources of information and/or data that allege Gross Violation of Human Rights along the chain of command of the Respondent/Intended Defendant.
“This intervention has the potential to have a detrimental effect on the overall socio-economic standing of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
“Further, this affects the security of the Americas and is in the public’s interest. The socio-economic impact of this breach cannot be empirically quantified and will only be exacerbated by the past, present and continuous detention of the Applicants/ Intended Defendants in the present construct of ‘The Heliport’ Chaguaramas,” the attorneys argued.
Additionally, the attorneys argue the migrants have been issued deportation orders, but there is no evidence of any arrangements for the potential claimants’ actual deportation.
This, the lawyers contend, is tantamount to a penalty for illegal entry into T&T.
Satisfactory facility
When the matter came up for hearing last week, Prescott also noted that between July 9, when they were arrested at the Apex bar in St James, and on July 25, when National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds declared the location to be a detention station, the migrants were being unlawfully held.
Prescott said under Section 16 of the Immigration Act, the ministry is only allowed to detain illegal immigrants, whether they are seeking asylum status or not, at a detention station or a facility that was deemed “satisfactory” by the minister to house such people.
The contentious issue is that at the time of the arrest and detention of the 64, the Heliport was not deemed to be a detention station, nor did the minister issue an order stating the facility was “satisfactory” to detain the migrants.
In his submissions, Prescott stated that it was only at midnight on July 25 that Hinds moved to declare the Heliport a detention station. This meant that from the time of their arrest until July 25, his clients were being unlawfully detained.
On the morning of July 9, 196 migrants and asylum seekers were detained at the Apex bar during a joint police operation.
An estimated 90 people have since been released, with the others being kept at the Heliport in Chaguaramas.