Can migrant children be detained or deported from Trinidad and Tobago?

No separate rules for children in the Immigration Act

The Immigration Act (Chapter 18:01) has no special provisions on detaining or deporting children. The general powers apply, such as the Minister’s power to order the deportation of a person who entered unlawfully, which the Act lets him exercise without an inquiry and from which there is “no right of appeal” (s 11), and the power to detain a person against whom a deportation order has been made (s 16). For a child facing such an order, as for an adult, the routes are court proceedings and a request to the Minister to cancel it (s 27(6)); see challenging a deportation order. The Children Act (Chapter 46:01), which defines a child as a person under 18, contains no immigration powers and does not authorise immigration detention.

What the Privy Council decided in Rodriguez Martinez

Rodriguez Martinez v Chief Immigration Officer [2022] UKPC 29 concerned a teenage boy and his mother who arrived from Venezuela by boat, intending to seek asylum, and were detained. The Minister made a deportation order against the mother under section 11 on 12 January 2021. No order was made against the boy until 16 March 2022. The Privy Council decided:

1. A parent’s deportation order does not cover the child. A deportation order requires the person “in respect of whom it is made” to leave, and the Minister must consider each person, parent or child, separately. Detention pending deportation under section 16 is lawful only if the person detained is the subject of a deportation order. An unwritten policy of keeping children with their detained parents could not supply the legal authority. The boy’s detention from the expiry of the quarantine orders under which he was first held until an order was made against him was declared unlawful.
2. The same applies to unaccompanied children. The Board agreed with a Court of Appeal decision that there was no power to detain two unaccompanied children, held without deportation orders until they could be placed with the Children’s Authority (Chief Immigration Officer v Navarro and Gobin).
3. The child’s welfare must be weighed. In deciding whether a period of detention is reasonable, the court must take the child’s welfare into account, including age, needs, the impact of detention, and the impact of being separated from a parent who remains in detention. The reasonable period for a child is likely to differ from that for an adult.
4. A court order stopping removal does not by itself end detention. While constitutional proceedings were pending, the High Court had restrained the State from removing the pair. The Board held that this did not by itself make their detention unlawful.

The Board did not decide:

• whether the deportation order later made against the boy was valid, which it left to the courts of Trinidad and Tobago;
• whether the length of the detention was reasonable, which it sent back to the High Court, after finding that the Court of Appeal had applied the wrong approach;
• anything about the merits of the constitutional claim to seek asylum;
• that children can never be detained under the Immigration Act. It said that the order later made against the boy, unless quashed, would justify detaining him for no longer than is reasonable.

Children of parents facing deportation

A parent’s deportation order does not cover a child (see above). A child born in Trinidad and Tobago, or the child of a citizen or resident, may not be liable to deportation at all. A child born in Trinidad and Tobago is a citizen from birth, unless at the time neither parent was a citizen and one had diplomatic immunity, or a parent was an enemy alien and the birth took place in enemy-occupied territory (Constitution of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, s 17(1)–(2)). A citizen has the right to be admitted to Trinidad and Tobago (Immigration Act, s 4(1)). The child of a citizen or resident who is a minor, or is dependent on and living with the parents, is a resident (s 5(1)(e)).

Where a parent is to be deported, the Privy Council has said, without deciding the point, that there will be cases in which careful regard will need to be had to the interests of family members, “not least those of a child who is a national of the host country” (Naidike v Attorney General). The Constitution recognises the right to respect for private and family life (s 4(c)).

Can migrant children go to school in Trinidad and Tobago?

No person may admit a child who is not a citizen or resident to an educational or training establishment unless the child holds a valid student’s permit (Immigration Regulations, reg 9(6)(e)). The Minister may exempt from the student’s permit requirements a child under 18 of an immigrant who holds a permit under section 10 of the Immigration Act (reg 9(6)(i)). The rules on work for permit holders are explained on the page on migrants and work.