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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Court blocks deportation of Cuban teenager

by

Darren Bahaw
2122 days ago
20191009
Bhalia Massiel Perez Delgado (left) reunites with her mother Lucrecia De La Caridad Delgado Lopez at the Piarco International Airport on Monday night.

Bhalia Massiel Perez Delgado (left) reunites with her mother Lucrecia De La Caridad Delgado Lopez at the Piarco International Airport on Monday night.

High Court judge Jus­tice James Aboud has blocked im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties from de­port­ing a 14-year-old Cuban teenag­er who was re­fused en­try at Pi­ar­co Air­port last Sun­day.

In an emer­gency hear­ing, on Mon­day night, the judge grant­ed an in­junc­tion and or­dered that the teenag­er Bhalia Massiel Perez Del­ga­do be re­leased in the cus­tody of her moth­er Lu­cre­cia De La Cari­dad Del­ga­do Lopez.

The child was de­nied en­try af­ter she re­turned from Cu­ba and was sched­uled to be de­port­ed yes­ter­day on a Co­pa flight back to Cu­ba.

Her at­tor­neys, Owen Hinds Jr and Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, had at first sought to get the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to over­turn the im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ty or­der and when that failed they pe­ti­tioned the High Court for a hear­ing.

Jus­tice James Aboud heard the mat­ter be­fore grant­i­ng the in­junc­tion short­ly be­fore 7 pm. Im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties on­ly re­leased the child around 11 pm af­ter the Reg­is­trar of the High Court in­ter­vened.

The child’s moth­er has been grant­ed refugee sta­tus in this coun­try in 2017. Her daugh­ter came to Trinidad that same year and was al­lowed en­try on the con­di­tion that she re­port to the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly.

Against the ad­vice of her at­tor­ney, the child’s moth­er al­lowed her daugh­ter to trav­el to Cu­ba to vis­it her ail­ing fa­ther but she en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties when she at­tempt­ed to re­turn.

No date has yet been set for the hear­ing of the ju­di­cial re­view law­suit chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion of the im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties.

immigrationCubandeportationHigh Court


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