An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na.lisa-paul@guardian.co.tt

High Court Judge Prakash Moo­sai yes­ter­day grant­ed a stay of ex­e­cu­tion of the or­der of Jus­tice Ricky Rahim on Tues­day `that no longer re­strains Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds from de­port­ing 64 Venezue­lan mi­grants—some of whom cur­rent­ly re­main de­tained at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port.

In hand­ing down the vir­tu­al rul­ing fol­low­ing an ap­peal brought by the State yes­ter­day, Moo­sai re­ferred to the rul­ing of Jus­tice Ricky Rahim, in which he or­dered the group be re­leased on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion and ef­fec­tive­ly barred their im­me­di­ate de­por­ta­tion, pend­ing the out­come of the mi­grants’ ju­di­cial re­view hear­ing.

Min­utes af­ter the rul­ing was de­liv­ered, mi­grant fam­i­lies gath­ered out­side Quan­tum Le­gal’s of­fice in Port-of-Spain in tears, many of them shout­ing, “No!”

Ac­tivist Yese­nia Gon­za­les al­so lament­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty that those who re­mained de­tained at the He­li­port could be fac­ing de­por­ta­tion even as their hus­bands and young chil­dren re­main here in the coun­try.

At­tor­ney Blaine So­bri­an, who is rep­re­sent­ing the mi­grants, ex­plained that Moo­sai’s judg­ment es­sen­tial­ly meant there was now no or­der in place that the per­sons de­tained at the He­li­port must be re­leased on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion.

So­bri­an said, “The or­ders of de­por­ta­tion have es­sen­tial­ly been re­in­stat­ed, as there was no longer an or­der con­strain­ing the Min­is­ter from ef­fect­ing those de­por­ta­tion or­ders. There­fore, those per­sons re­main­ing, may be sub­ject to the de­por­ta­tion by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.”

There had been high hopes that an­oth­er group of mi­grants would have been re­leased yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Tues­day’s ex­er­cise which saw 29 per­sons be­ing freed af­ter Jus­tice Rahim’s rul­ing. But those hopes were dashed af­ter Jus­tice Moo­sai’s rul­ing yes­ter­day.

Both So­bri­an and Quan­tum Le­gal head Criston J Williams de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as un­for­tu­nate.

Williams said he was now con­cerned that Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials could, “come like a thief in the night and de­port those who are still in the He­li­port.”

Fol­low­ing the re­lease of the 29 mi­grants on Tues­day, 35 of their com­pa­tri­ots had re­mained de­tained at the He­li­port. The group of 64 Venezue­lan mi­grants were among over a 100 of them de­tained on Ju­ly 9 at the Apex Bar in St James.

Williams is now hop­ing for an ex­pe­di­tious hear­ing of his clients’ sub­stan­tial mat­ter chal­leng­ing the state’s at­tempt to de­port them be­fore the Court of Ap­peal and that a date will be af­fixed be­fore the end of this month.

So­bri­an said, “This stay is on­ly un­til the fi­nal de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ap­peal be­fore the full pan­el of the Court of Ap­peal.”

Re­fer­ring to the 1951 Con­ven­tion for Refugees, So­bri­an con­tin­ued, “This would be the first time, as the Court not­ed, that the Court of Ap­peal deals ful­ly with that par­tic­u­lar sit­u­a­tion.”

Sur­round­ed by rel­a­tives of mi­grants who were cry­ing and de­mand­ing an­swers yes­ter­day, So­bri­an said, “Per­sons are def­i­nite­ly frus­trat­ed, they are con­fused and they are up­set.”

He added, “It seems an ar­bi­trary de­ci­sion was made to re­lease cer­tain per­sons. We have in­for­ma­tion that a moth­er’s child was re­leased while she is still de­tained at the He­li­port. A hus­band was re­leased while his wife is still there, so there is a lot of con­fu­sion and de­spair at this time.”

As for those mi­grants who were re­leased ear­li­er this week, Williams said, “Those who are out­side will re­main out­side un­til Sep­tem­ber, and those who are in­side ... the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty could de­port them and they could al­ways get per­mis­sion from the Court to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the 29 mi­grants who were freed are now in re­ceipt of su­per­vi­sion or­ders with in­struc­tions to ap­pear be­fore the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion on Sep­tem­ber 14. Fail­ure to do so, one le­gal source ex­plained, could re­sult in them be­ing picked up by the au­thor­i­ties, lead­ing to their pos­si­ble im­me­di­ate de­ten­tion and their even­tu­al de­por­ta­tion.

There were un­con­firmed re­ports up to last night that Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials had al­ready se­cured per­mis­sion from Venezue­lan of­fi­cials to fa­cil­i­tate the de­por­ta­tion of some of the de­tainees.