Pregnant Venezuelan, minors to remain in quarantine at heliport

THE STATE has not agreed to have a pregnant Venezuelan woman and two minors quarantined at a private residence in Erin.

On Friday, attorneys for the State were asked to agree to have the woman, who entered TT illegally in August, quarantined at a house in Erin, rather than the heliport in Chaguaramas, where she was being held with other Venezuelans at the state facility for illegal immigrants.

Leiexis de Carmen Gutierrez Cedeno’s habeas corpus application was one of more than a dozen which came up before Justice Joan Charles on Friday.

In response to the request, Cedeno’s attorneys said it was the policy that illegal immigrants who are suspected covid19 cases are detained at the heliport facility.

The request to have the woman, who is eight months pregnant, quarantined in Erin came after the judge expressed concern that a pregnant woman and two minors, four and 12, were detained at the heliport facility. Her attorneys asked for the home detention order on “humanitarian grounds.”

While adding that she was not making a determination on the application, Charles said she was taking judicial notice of it, since she did not think it appropriate for a pregnant woman and minors to be among a group of adults, including men.

“I don’t know what arrangement is there for the separation of women, children and men in there.”

The Venezuelans, some of whom are under not only quarantine orders but detention orders, are complaining that those who are negative run the risk of contracting covid19. Dozens who were also repatriated on Friday also sought to challenge their detention. Sources said a group of 93 Venezuelans, some of whom were also at the Immigration Detention Centre, were repatriated by boat at about 2 pm on Friday.

In their various applications, they denied they are covid19 cases, but the State is claiming that at least two have tested positive while five others are contacts of the positive cases and are lawfully under quarantine orders by the Health Minister in accordance with his legal authority under the public health ordinance.

Senior Counsel Elton Prescott, who leads Criston J Williams and Kerrina Samdeo for some of the Venezuelans who challenged their detention, argued before the judge that they were exposed to infection by being sent to the heliport facility.

“If you are going to be quarantined with others in a facility with those suspected of being infected it is defeating the purpose of quarantine,” he argued. He said the State had to provide particulars to justify the detentions.

“The burden is on the State to satisfy this court it has a legal right to detain these people,” he said.

He also questioned whether the State could order the quarantine of those suspected of being exposed to a positive case. “They have not been tested,” he said, adding that the quarantine order was defective.

However, in resisting the application for habeas corpus, Senior Counsel Reginald Armour, who represented the State, argued that those who have been exposed to covid19 cases, and pose a threat to others, are not housed separately but are detained under quarantine to minimise the spread to the public and are provided with masks and sanitising solutions to ensure they are protected.

He reminded the judge of the recent decision of Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh, who held that the minister had the legal authority to make regulations under the public health ordinance. “The minister has the jurisdiction under the ordinance and the regulations to order that they be held in a quarantine facility,” Armour said.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Does the minister have the power to detain under ordinance and regulation in context in which the order/direction was issued?’” he submitted, adding that the quarantine directions given to the group said they had been exposed to infection by someone who tested positive and was directed to be quarantined at a designated state facility for treatment for possibly 28 days.

“We are well within that 28-day period,” he said, adding that it was an “entirely clear direction given by the minister by lawful authority.”

He also pointed out that those at the facility were also under lawful immigration deportation orders as he asked for the applications to be dismissed.