Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

So­cial ac­tivist Nafeesa Mo­hammed says there is no need for the Re­turnee Bill 2024 to repa­tri­ate cit­i­zens cur­rent­ly stuck in the Mid­dle East. She made the com­ment as she ref­er­enced the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Unit (ATU) an­nu­al re­port for 2023-2024, which says the leg­is­la­tion is be­ing re­viewed and fi­nalised. The re­port was laid in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day.

The Re­turnee Bill seeks to leg­isla­tive­ly rein­te­grate fam­i­lies who left the coun­try to join the ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion ISIS.

“This no­tion that you need leg­is­la­tion to repa­tri­ate our cit­i­zens is re­al­ly some­thing that has gone over­board now be­cause there is no need for leg­is­la­tion,” Mo­hammed said.

“I keep say­ing to per­sons who I’m able to talk to, but I do not have an av­enue to speak to those peo­ple who make up this Team Nightin­gale, who seem to have very Is­lam­o­pho­bic per­sons at the helm, who are hell-bent on con­tin­u­ing this nar­ra­tive as though these chil­dren and women are go­ing to be so dan­ger­ous if they are brought back home.”

Team Nightin­gale is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and mul­ti-agency team in charge of the repa­tri­a­tion process and rein­te­gra­tion of T&T na­tion­als here. It con­sists of mem­bers of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

At­tor­neys and spe­cial in­ter­est groups have been clam­our­ing for the State to do more to re­turn na­tion­als stuck in refugee camps in the Mid­dle East.

The lat­est re­port says while the ATU is un­der the purview of the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the draft leg­is­la­tion is be­ing spear­head­ed by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.

Af­ter the col­lapse of the Is­lam­ic State in 2019, T&T cit­i­zens were among more than 50,000 peo­ple held at camps in Syr­ia. Most of the men who left T&T to join ISIS were killed in ar­eas of con­flict and the sur­viv­ing fight­ers were tak­en to Syr­ia and Iraq, along with women and chil­dren.

In Ju­ly 2023, UN ex­pert Fion­nu­ala Ní Aoláin vis­it­ed the al-Hol, al-Hawl and al-Roj camps and oth­er de­ten­tion cen­tres. At the time, there were an es­ti­mat­ed 90 Trinida­di­ans, in­clud­ing at least 21 women and 56 chil­dren im­pris­oned since 2019.

Since the for­ma­tion of the unit in 2019, the ATU has ob­tained 152 or­ders from the High Court in con­nec­tion with a to­tal of 490 in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties hav­ing their as­sets frozen. The re­port said be­tween Jan­u­ary to No­vem­ber last year, one per­son was delist­ed and his as­sets un­frozen. The re­port did not iden­ti­fy the per­son.

In ad­dress­ing bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, the re­port said Ad­vance Pas­sen­gers’ In­for­ma­tion and Pas­sen­ger Name Record leg­is­la­tion is be­ing up­dat­ed to im­prove bor­der man­age­ment, coun­tert­er­ror­ism and com­bat drug traf­fick­ing and hu­man traf­fick­ing. The ATU said it is work­ing with oth­er en­ti­ties in the coun­try and the Cari­com Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS) with fund­ing from the 11th Eu­ro­pean De­vel­op­ment Fund to de­vel­op an up­dat­ed mod­el to the leg­is­la­tion.

Mo­hammed said there are suf­fi­cient pro­fes­sion­als in the coun­try able to as­sist in smooth tran­si­tion from camps in Syr­ia to homes in Trinidad.

“We have ex­perts in this coun­try, whether they work for the state or pri­vate­ly, who are ca­pa­ble of do­ing as­sess­ments and pre­scrib­ing the kind of in­ter­ven­tions or treat­ment plans, if any, is need­ed for these per­sons. But more than that, we con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for the repa­tri­a­tion of these cit­i­zens and for them to be re­unit­ed with their fam­i­lies and then for them to be, you know, rein­te­grat­ed. ... And there­fore, I would want to re­peat this call for repa­tri­a­tion as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and there’s no need for leg­is­la­tion.”