Three Jamaicans have spent the last three days detained by the Immigration Department without any charges. Jermaine Davis, Carlos Higgins, and Tyreece Steven arrived in the country on Friday but they're not being permitted to stay in Belize and have instead been going back and forth between the airport and a nearby hotel, while in custody. That's because based on their travel pattern - the Immigration Department believes they are trying to use Belize as a route to enter the United States illegally. As CARICOM Nationals, Jamaicans do not need a visa to enter Belize - which has been an attraction for those trying to get to the US. 11 Jamaicans were similarly detained and sent back recently.
The detentions are a major shift in tone and treatment from a tweet made by Foreign Minister, Eamon Courtenay earlier this year, when he said there were no restrictions on Jamaicans who want to visit Belize, so they should, quote, "pull up."
Well, three more of them did, and they've been unlawfully detained, according to Higgins' attorney, Norman Rodriguez, who spoke to us today.
Norman Rodriguez, Attorney
"My instruction is that they came into Belize on a flight at about 4:45 on Friday and they attempted to go through immigration where they were pulled aside, their passports were taken, and even though they attempted, these are the instructions right, even though they attempted to show the immigration officer that they had an itinerary for a week more or less in Belize to stay at a hotel and that they had people residing in Belize legally there to meet them at the airport, that they had money in their pockets, and that they had an itinerary for a flight out of Belize at the end of their stay, they were not granted permission to stay in Belize. So they were taken by immigration and probably like four hours after they were taken to the Ladyville police station where they were locked up and they said it was really unsanitary where they were put to sleep that night. Then they were taken back to the airport and later on, that is the next day to a hotel, I believe it's Global Village Hotel to the entrance of the PGIA on the Philip Goldson Highway and that they are taken there every evening, detained, where two immigration officers stay in a room next to them and in the morning, they are taken back to the airport where they have to stay because there's no immigration officers to stay there at the hotel while they are detained. My problem is that they are unlawfully detained, there has been no charged preferred, they have not told that they have committed any immigration offense or broke any Belize law. Yet they are detained."
"They took their passports, they took their phones, they took their money, they took one of their laptops, and a VISA NCB card, they took their jewelry, they took their watch, they took there earrings, their AirPods, they took everything and they are allowed to go to the airport, they are allowed to go to the airport when they want to change clothes to get a change or two of clothes and brought back to the hotel under detention. There's more to it. If these men could not afford to pay for a hotel, you know what would have happened? They would have been taken to prison because 11 people were taken to prison the week before, I represented them, and I'm ready to take their instructions."
Rodriguez said that his next steps were to get his client released from detention. He added that his client was only to stay a week in the country.
