7,000 seek asylum in TT

SOME 7,000 foreign nationals are now seeking asylum in TT, a Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Human Rights learnt yesterday from Chief Immigration Officer Charmaine Gandhi-Andrews yesterday at a hearing at Parliament.

Members of the Ministry of National Security, which runs the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) at Aripo, appeared before the committee, plus members of the Living WatersCommunity, an NGO that helps immigrants.

Gandhi-Andrews said 120 immigrants are at the IDC, while 1,700 immigrants are “out,” each under an order of supervision secured by a financial bond and a TT national agreeing to help the immigrant. She said asylum can only be given to someone living in fear of their life and in fear of persecution.

While the LWC’s attorney Gina Maharaj complained of some hardship in accessing detainees at the IDC, Gandhi-Andrews said whenever outsiders visit those premises for whatever reason, the detainees start acting up, prompting security concerns.

When JSC member Saddam Hosein said TT had signed a global convention on the human rights of migrants, Gandhi-Andrews said the Immigration Act does not address the plight of asylum-seekers, many of whose status (such as work-permit eligibility) remains in limbo while their application is heard locally by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. An order of supervision is the only way to release such people from the IDC, she said.

Gandhi-Andrews noted the $30,000 for an airline ticket to repatriate an immigrant to Africa (plus the cost of escorts), after which cost the person can still end up legally appealing the deportation or can simply become unruly during the transfer and so obstruct the move.

JSC member Dhanayshar Maharaj asked the ministry’s policy on immigrants who end up having children with TT nationals, to which Gandhi-Andrews said the policy is to try to keep families intact.

Maharaj then compared the $30,000 ticket cost to the expense of housing an immigrant at the IDC, which he estimated at $300 a day, or $50,000 for six months. He was concerned at immigrants’ children being out of school, but did not offer any anecdotal evidence of this. JSC chairman Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said this issue may be beyond the scope of these ministry officials.