A 14-year-old T&T na­tion­al has been de­tained by the US Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion (CBP) agency, ac­cord­ing to a lo­cal at­tor­ney. The de­ten­tion has al­leged­ly tak­en place in spite of pleas by her moth­er, at­tor­neys and the T&T con­sulate in Mi­a­mi. Im­mi­gra­tion at­tor­ney Randy De­poo said the girl–whose iden­ti­ty he with­held–ar­rived in Mi­a­mi on Ju­ly 1, 2010, with a T&T pass­port and US visa, as an un­ac­com­pa­nied mi­nor, on Caribbean Air­lines. De­poo said that dur­ing the in­spec­tion it was de­ter­mined that the girl had over­stayed her visa in 2001, when her moth­er took her to the Unit­ed States. The girl was then five years old.

The at­tor­ney fur­ther claimed that while be­ing ques­tioned by CBP, her aunt sought an ex­pla­na­tion, but was told to leave. He said the child's moth­er was tele­phoned in T&T and told the girl would be per­mit­ted to stay in the US. But in a sub­se­quent call, the moth­er said the child would be de­tained be­cause of her pri­or over­stay. De­poo claimed the child was first kept at a ho­tel and then trans­ferred to the cus­tody of the Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment (ICE), which sent her to an in­sti­tu­tion in Hous­ton, Texas. He said the T&T Gov­ern­ment, through the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, had in­ter­vened, but with no suc­cess to date.

He said he had con­tact­ed the CBP head­quar­ters re­quest­ing that the girl be per­mit­ted to with­draw her ap­pli­ca­tion for ad­mis­sion to the US. He said he has ex­plained that the girl broke no law. "She sim­ply over­stayed her time as a very young child," said De­poo. He said that the girl's moth­er is "se­vere­ly trau­ma­tised" and is "cry­ing in­ces­sant­ly." De­poo said the child and moth­er had spo­ken on the phone and the young woman had begged to re­turn home. The at­tor­ney said he was con­tin­u­ing to seek the fam­i­ly's in­ter­ests.

Min­is­ter in­ter­venes

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan told the Guardian yes­ter­day he had been "fol­low­ing up the is­sue on a dai­ly ba­sis."

Ram­bachan said he raised the mat­ter at a se­nior lev­el with the US au­thor­i­ties. The min­is­ter said he had been seek­ing to de­ter­mine why the girl was de­tained rather than sent back to T&T.