DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion has agreed to hold off on de­port­ing 64 Venezue­lan mi­grants de­tained at the Ch­aguara­mas He­li­port un­til Jus­tice Ricky Rahim de­cides on an in­junc­tion sought by them, next Tues­day. 

Af­ter re­serv­ing his de­ci­sion on the in­junc­tion af­ter hear­ing sub­mis­sions from the group and the di­vi­sion dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing, on Fri­day, Jus­tice Rahim en­quired whether the di­vi­sion was will­ing to give an un­der­tak­ing on not ex­e­cut­ing their de­por­ta­tions. 

The di­vi­sion’s lawyer Gre­go­ry Delzin did not im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond as he re­quest­ed that the case be briefly stood down for him to ob­tain in­struc­tions from his client. 

When he re­turned to the hear­ing min­utes lat­er, Delzin agreed to the un­der­tak­ing. 

The mi­grants were among a large group of fel­low Venezue­lan na­tion­als, al­most 200, who were de­tained for im­mi­gra­tion of­fences at a night­club in St James on Ju­ly 9. 

Last Mon­day, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held a claim from six of the de­tainees in which they con­tend­ed that they were un­law­ful­ly held at the lo­ca­tion, which was of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed as a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty for the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic but not as an im­mi­gra­tion de­ten­tion sta­tion. 

Two days lat­er, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad con­sid­ered a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion from an­oth­er of the de­tainees. 

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did not or­der his re­lease as his col­league did with the six oth­ers as the case came up for hear­ing af­ter Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is­sued the sug­gest­ed de­c­la­ra­tion re­gard­ing the lo­ca­tion. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad did rule that he would be en­ti­tled to com­pen­sa­tion for his brief un­law­ful de­ten­tion, which would be cal­cu­lat­ed at a lat­er date. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions in the group’s case, Se­nior Coun­sel El­ton Prescott made sim­i­lar sub­mis­sions over the des­ig­na­tion of the lo­ca­tion. 

He al­so con­tend­ed that the di­vi­sion failed to prop­er­ly ap­ply its dis­cre­tion un­der Sec­tion 17 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act to re­lease them on or­ders of su­per­vi­sion while they pur­sue refugee or asy­lum seek­er sta­tus from the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Refugees (UN­HCR). 

In his sub­mis­sions, Delzin called on Jus­tice Rahim to re­ject the in­junc­tion ap­pli­ca­tion and refuse them leave to pur­sue their sub­stan­tive case over their de­ten­tion as they had no cause of ac­tion. 

He point­ed out that in the ev­i­dence at­tached to their ap­pli­ca­tion, the group’s lawyers did not pro­vide de­tails on the sta­tus of their in­di­vid­ual ap­pli­ca­tions with the UN­HCR. 

“The en­tire ap­pli­ca­tion is pred­i­cat­ed on a mis­read­ing of the law,” Delzin said. 

He al­so point­ed out that the group was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly seek­ing their re­lease from de­ten­tion while claim­ing that there was an un­rea­son­able de­lay in de­port­ing them.

“So which is it? Are they say­ing that they can­not be de­port­ed or is it that they are say­ing that they can be de­port­ed but it is just that they are be­ing held at the fa­cil­i­ty for too long,” Delzin asked. 

In her sub­mis­sions, at­tor­ney Vanes­sa Gopaul, who ap­peared along­side Delzin, claimed that the di­vi­sion did not have the pow­er to place them on su­per­vi­sion or­ders af­ter they were is­sued with de­por­ta­tion or­ders, last month. 

The group is al­so rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Blaine So­bri­an and Shiv­anand Mo­han.