Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Con­cerns are mount­ing among rel­a­tives of more than 150 Venezue­lan na­tion­als who re­main de­tained at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port for an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od.

Last week­end, im­mi­gra­tion and po­lice of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed 196 mi­grants at the Apex Bar in St James. Out of this group, 40 mi­grants have been re­leased, while the re­main­ing in­di­vid­u­als are un­der­go­ing pro­cess­ing by au­thor­i­ties await­ing re­lease.

Guardian Me­dia wit­nessed nu­mer­ous rel­a­tives of the de­tained mi­grants de­liv­er­ing es­sen­tial sup­plies such as food, wa­ter, and per­son­al items at the gates of the he­li­port.

Videos of the poor con­di­tions and lack of san­i­ta­tion at the fa­cil­i­ty have cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia, ac­com­pa­nied by des­per­ate pleas for as­sis­tance.

Rel­a­tives who spoke to Guardian Me­dia re­vealed that fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing mi­nors and el­der­ly in­di­vid­u­als, are among those de­tained.

Some of the mi­grants’ chil­dren are in the care of in­di­vid­u­als that they know since last Sun­day.

Jose Je­re­mias, a rel­a­tive of one of the de­tainees, ex­pressed his con­cerns, stat­ing, “I un­der­stand that there are mi­nors, pen­sion­ers, el­der­ly peo­ple. It’s been six years for me in Trinidad. I have my ID card but I need peo­ple in Trinidad, the Gov­ern­ment, and every­one im­por­tant to un­der­stand the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

“What is hap­pen­ing in Venezuela is so sad and very chal­leng­ing. Peo­ple don’t come to any coun­try in the world look­ing for prob­lems. I un­der­stand that every coun­try has good and bad peo­ple but many peo­ple come to Trinidad for one thing: to find em­ploy­ment and work hard for their fam­i­lies.”

The di­rec­tor of La Ca­sita His­pan­ic Cul­tur­al Cen­tre An­dreina Brown ral­lied sup­port for the de­tainees and ex­pressed a will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate with au­thor­i­ties to find a res­o­lu­tion.

Brown high­light­ed that on­ly 40 in­di­vid­u­als have been re­leased so far and there are con­cerns about chil­dren left un­at­tend­ed or un­der the care of oth­ers who may not be the pri­ma­ry providers.

She em­pha­sised the need for clar­i­ty re­gard­ing the next steps for the de­tainees, as fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing fa­thers, chil­dren, and moth­ers, have been af­fect­ed.

Brown not­ed the anx­i­ety among the de­tainees who protest­ed due to the lack of potable wa­ter and lim­it­ed ac­cess to food.

She want­ed to know why the mi­grants have been de­tained for such an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od. Since the de­ten­tion of the mi­grants, lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights groups have called for the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion through leg­is­la­tion.

How­ev­er, nei­ther the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion nor the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has is­sued any state­ment on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing the mi­grants.