97 Venezuelans deported after week of court battles

Finally, 97 Venezuelans were deported to their country on Saturday after a month of detention at the Chaguaramas heliport.

The migrants were transferred around noon to Staubles Bay, Chaguaramas from where they were sent to their country via passenger vessel Galleon's Passage.

Relatives gathered at the heliport to catch a glimpse of their detained relatives who were packed into several TT Immigration Division buses under strong police and military custody.

An emotional Anny Dique, a Venezuelan with a work permit issued by the TT government in 2019, said her 18-year-old son was unjustly deported.

“It is a great pain as a mother to see my son through a bus window being deported as a criminal. He was registered with me, they shouldn't have deported him because he was legal here,” she said.

The 97 deportees were due to arrive Saturday night at the port of Guiria, Venezuela.

Venezuelan embassy sources told Newsday there are still ten detained women who were not deported because they have children in TT. Their cases are still pending evaluation.

At the heliport, Yesenia Gonzalez, a defender of human rights for Venezuelans, rejected the mass deportation.

Gonzalez said that among the deportees is a man whose resettlement was approved by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to be sent to a third country.

“It is totally illegal violating human rights. All have UNHCR registration cards and are protected by international law. They came to TT fleeing the socioeconomic situation in their country. They are not criminals."

She said despite being taken to court, the TT government decided to deport them.

“They were locked up in inhumane conditions for more than a month with sick people without receiving medicine or good food. I myself brought 16 boxes of water and they received nothing. Their personal belongings were not returned to them either,” she said.

She said in deportation there are cases of mothers who had to leave their children with their fathers and relatives.

“We are fighting so that this does not happen again. We continue working to defend the human rights of migrants in TT.”

This group of 97 deportees is part of the 200 migrants detained last month during a party at the Apex bar, St James. About half of them were released by the court after the analysis of their cases.

The deportation exercise of the Venezuelans, initially reported to be more than 100, began from as early as 2 am when immigration officers began processing the detainees at the heliport.

Relatives and friends waved as two buses drove out of the heliport with the first group of migrants at about 11 am. Members of the military, immigration, police officers and representatives of the Venezuelan embassy were also at the heliport. A video taken by someone inside the the facility, which has been designated a detention centre, showed the migrants separated from officials who sat at desks in an area cordoned off by an indoor fence.

The deportation exercise follows a week of court action by lawyers representing the migrants who sought their release challenging the Minister of National Security, Fitzgerald Hinds.

On Friday, in a letter to lawyers representing the minister, attorneys of the law firm Quantum Legal appealed for Hinds to direct the chief immigration officer to release their clients.

They also asked that the minister hold his hand on vetoing their conditional release if the chief immigration officer chooses to release them.

Also attached to the letter was correspondence from the UNHCR which provided a list of the status of those who sought refugee/asylum seeker status.

The attorneys claimed the government stood to damage its international image buy pursing the deportation of migrants who may be listed as asylum seekers or refugees.

Earlier this week, on Justice Ricky Rahim ordered the immediate release of 64 Venezuelans who were detained on July 9, and temporarily gave them a reprieve by preventing their immediate deportation. Only 30 of them were released before immigration officers were ordered to stop releasing any more migrants after attorneys for the minister appealed the decision.

Friday’s letter said some of those who were conditionally released and put on orders of supervision left behind family members who remained at the heliport. One of them is the mother of a 14-year-old who remains detained although her teenage daughter was released.