Sri Lankans Asylum Application in Limbo; more than $530,000 spent to house the men

#TurksandCaicos, May 26, 2021 – For nine months, the Turks and Caicos Islands Government has been paying $59,000 a month to the Airport Inn to house and feed 21 individuals found on a Haitian sloop with 158 others in October 2019.  The group had all been released from the detention center by August 25, 2020 following court action for their release brought during the period February 2020 until late August 2020. Since that time they have been dependent on the state as they have submitted asylum applications seeking to stay in the western world. 

Prior to their housing at the Airport Inn, the same individuals were held at the South Dock Road Detention Center for ten months, after they were caught in a people trafficking ring and identified as key pieces in a criminal enterprise puzzle.

Eventually, the architect of the complex exploit for the Sri Lankans from home to the Caribbean and with hopes of onward passage to North America would be brought down; Sri Kajamukam Chelliah, aka Mohan, who is 55 years old was convicted in Turks and Caicos and is now convicted and set to serve 32 months in Florida federal prison.  He was sentenced on Monday May 17, 2021 in Florida.

Twenty Eight (28) Sri Lankans and one Indian were in the mix of Haitians which were picked up by the coastal radar.  By then the group had been travelling for over a year from their home countries in order to escape persecution and victimization, and managed to make it to Haiti.  With Mohan, they boarded a boat bound for Turks and Caicos but they were caught, arrested and detained.

The detention from October 2019 to August 2020 was for the purposes of a criminal investigation by which to build a case against the smuggler.  A case was built and Mohan pleaded guilty in a TCI court and served time at Her Majesty’s Prison.  In August 2020, Mohan was extradited to the United States for similar crimes and on May 17 was found guilty and sentenced to 34 months.

The entire time, the other Sri Lankans were trapped in Turks and Caicos.  Delays in an offered return to Sri Lanka was explained by TCIG with reference to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Attorney Tim Prudhoe of law firm Prudhoe Caribbean law firm, had originally been called in to take the case of the smuggler.  Interest, for Prudhoe however, turned to plight of the smuggled Sri Lankan detainees.  At that time, several of the men caught in the October 2019 interception were transported to the United States where in exchange for evidence against Mohan, they were likely given some break. Sixteen of the remaining Sri Lankans became clients of Prudhoe Caribbean.

The remaining men were in Turks and Caicos abandoned by the investigators and ignored by the Immigration Department.  None has been offered or given the right to work, to earn a living.  Some are farmers, others are drivers and yet more are skilled in carpentry, we are told.  

Three applied for asylum in in September 2020.  The three had previously been interviewed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who designated them refugees.  Asylum application made by these three were denied in early January of this year and which have since been appealed to His Excellency the Governor. was however.

Prudhoe Caribbean’s thirteen other Sri Lankan clients applied for asylum in mid-November.  These applications remain pending with the Minister for Immigration. Mr. Prudhoe, in an interview with Magnetic Media, confirmed that he is unaware of the recommendation of the UNHCR’s report on his second set of clients because access to those reports have been refused.

This matter has not only been to the Ministry, the Cabinet and the Governor’s Office but to the courts.  On appeal, the three first asylum applicants won on the point that the refusal to release them from the Detention Center in May 2020 was amounted to an unlawful detention.  The Appeal’s Court decision on 31 December 2020 opened the door for a successful false imprisonment claim. A damages determination on that is still pending. The country will then be forced to pay the men directly for having them held in detention.

Mr. Prudhoe confirmed that he has not been paid for his representation of the Sri Lankans. 

Meanwhile, countries sensitive to the dangerous conditions on the ground for the Tamil, on May 18, commemorated  – Tamil Genocide Day – when one hundred thousand Tamils were slaughtered in a sickening exercise of ‘ethnic cleansing’ which happened in Sri Lanka in 2009. The Sri Lankan Armed Forces was fingered for the massacre.  Today,  despite a declaration that the Civil War is over, there is still trouble for Tamil civilians; illegal land grabs, intimidation, oppression, censorship and  no demilitarization creates a climate of fear explains articles penned by Tamils outside of Sri Lanka.

The civil war is over but the persecution, they say lives on.  Tamils have found countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada to be their friends and offering safe haven. 

The Sir Lankans in Turks and Caicos would prefer to be in these countries where there are Tamil communities; but without asylum and a right to work and earn a living, they are not yet free enough to apply to these countries for passage.

In a cruel twist of fate, all of the countries, though open to immigrants, are right now closed to everyone due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Meanwhile, the sixteen Sri Lankans remain in limbo.  The Governor is yet to decide the asylum refusal appeals for the original three.  And the public purse is paying a whopping bill when citizens are struggling to pay rent and make ends meet; still reeling financially from the ravages of the pandemic.

When Minister of Immigration and Border Services, Arlington Musgrove held his national update on May 17 – he responded to Magnetic Media questions on the Sri Lankans, confirming the $59,000 monthly bill and saying the applications for asylum was unlikely to be approved. He did not say when a decision would be given.

“They had never mentioned asylum or nothing like that, so we are having a push back from their attorney.  We are right now in litigation over where do we go from here,” the Minister added, “we have a number of agencies involved in this and from the looks of it, they are in agreement where we are saying we don’t think they deserve asylum,” said the Minister to our query.

Tim Prudhoe said that his firm expect to  pursue false imprisonment claims for all sixteen clients.  The attorney-owner of Prudhoe Caribbean continues to seek the release of the UNHCR reports on the thirteen Sri Lankans.  The attorney also seeks to change the wider issue of a establishing clarity on the government policy on the right to work while awaiting response on an application for asylum. Prudhoe confirmed that his firm’s intervention has at least not resulted in Immigration Center detainees being asked if they want access to an attorney prior.