RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

One of the Venezue­lan na­tion­als who was re­cent­ly de­port­ed along with 96 oth­ers is now back in T&T, and is call­ing on the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds re­gard­ing his de­por­ta­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the fil­ing from his at­tor­ney, the man claimed the move to de­port him was whol­ly and ut­ter­ly im­prop­er and il­le­gal and con­tra­vened and/or by­passed sev­er­al manda­to­ry pro­vi­sions of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act.

Juan Manuel Acos­ta, a na­tion­al of Venezuela, asked Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to probe the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter. Acos­ta claimed that Hinds mis­rep­re­sent­ed that sev­er­al manda­to­ry, ad­min­is­tra­tive steps, process­es and pro­ce­dures were rigid­ly fol­lowed by him­self, his ser­vants, his per­son­nel and of­fi­cers un­der the purview of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion in ac­cor­dance with the Im­mi­gra­tion Act and the Im­mi­gra­tion Reg­u­la­tions.

At­tor­ney Blaine So­bri­an of Quan­tum Le­gal, who is act­ing on be­half of Acos­ta, said “Based on our in­struc­tions, we con­tend that there has been a sub­stan­tial num­ber of dis­crep­an­cies in the ad­min­is­tra­tion and due process of the is­suance and ex­e­cu­tion of the or­der of de­por­ta­tion against our client in that, steps, process­es and/or pro­ce­dures had been fol­lowed or even tak­en place.”

The le­gal chal­lenge from So­bri­an al­so stat­ed: “Be ad­vised that there is no pro­vi­sion in the Im­mi­gra­tion Act or Im­mi­gra­tion Reg­u­la­tion which au­tho­ris­es or al­lows for the process­es lead­ing to the is­suance and ex­e­cu­tion of a Form 19B or­der of de­por­ta­tion to be dis­pensed. If found that these steps were cir­cum­vent­ed, the min­is­ter, the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer and the re­spec­tive ser­vants and per­son­nel in­volved in the de­por­ta­tion of our client must be deemed crim­i­nal­ly li­able un­der Sec­tion 41 and Sec­tion 42 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act.”

Acos­ta, who was one of the 64 Venezue­lan mi­grants in the much-pub­li­cised ju­di­cial re­view case of Abra­ham Jose Rausseo Lopez and oth­ers ver­sus the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was de­tained at the He­li­port in Ch­aguara­mas.

How­ev­er, they were even­tu­al­ly is­sued Form 19B or­ders of de­por­ta­tion.

On Au­gust 12, Acos­ta was re­moved from the He­li­port and tak­en to Staubles Bay, where he was even­tu­al­ly de­port­ed from T&T and trans­port­ed to Venezuela along with 96 oth­ers.

Cur­rent­ly, back in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly, his at­tor­ney So­bri­an sent a let­ter to Hare­wood-Christo­pher stat­ing that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Acos­ta’s de­por­ta­tion may not have been an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent but that “our oth­er clients may have suf­fered an iden­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence.”

“Our client has re-en­tered the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go against the man­dates of his Form 19B or­der of de­por­ta­tion. In recog­ni­tion of our du­ty to the State and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, we have ad­vised our client to sur­ren­der him­self to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” So­bri­an said.

Acos­ta, as stat­ed in the doc­u­ment, “is will­ing to avail him­self to your good self and seeks your pro­tec­tion as a wit­ness and as a wit­ness in fear”.

“Our client has ex­pressed his wish­es to file a re­port against the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion and its per­son­nel for of­fences con­trary to Sec­tion 41(1) and 42(1) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act. How­ev­er, as will be­come ap­par­ent to your good self, our client’s re­port and the re­quests con­tained here­in may be ap­plic­a­ble and/or rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all the cit­i­zens of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela who are or were de­tained at the He­li­port rel­a­tive to the raid con­duct­ed by mem­bers of pro­tec­tive ser­vices at Apex Club in St James on 9th Ju­ly 2023, in­clud­ing our oth­er clients,” the let­ter read.