Desperate mother takes RISK; charged HUGE FINE $12,000 for smuggling Child to TCI

Wilkie Arthur

Freelance Court Reporter

Today, the woman is released as she awaits an appeal’s court hearing later this year.  Her son, in custody of Immigration Department, may have already been deported despite gut wrenching outcry by the mother who says he has no one in the embattled Republic to take care of him.

This case, stems back to December of last year.

The matter is one of a desperate mother who risked her child’s life and paid for his illegal passage to Providenciales, but was caught.  She was fined $12,000 or nine months imprisonment for Assisting an Illegal Entry.

The woman was caught just before Christmas, on  December 22nd, 2022; hit with a serious charge for facilitating and making arrangements for him to travel along with an adult male to the Turks and Caicos Islands(TCI), on an illegal Haitian sloop.

The Hon Chief Magistrate (CM) Mr. Jolyon Hatmin was so appalled with the mother as he described the audacity of this mother taking such serious chance through the black seas, wide open dangerous ocean putting her 15-year old son’s life at risk on a deadly voyage that could have resulted in her never seeing or hearing from her child ever again.

VIVIANE FRANCOIS, 42 is a mother of two boys, she explained.  The oldest born in Haiti and the youngest born here in the TCI.

On August 22nd, 2023, the factual evidence that was told the CM in court was that the boy’s father was moving to another country out of Haiti and he could not carry the boy with him.  He told this to the accused mother who said, she had no choice but to try get him here.  She said, through her attorney Jamal Missick, that the father didn’t give her much notice and she spent $1,500.00 and made the necessary arrangements to try get her son to the Turks and Caicos on an illegal Haitian sloop heading to the TCI.  The boat made land fall successfully in the Northwest Point/Blue Hills area and the mother and her now husband, a Haitian man and the father of her youngest son travelled from Five Cays to pick up her son after receiving a call from the adult male that they arrived safely.

They collected the son but on their way home was stopped by the authorities, as a result the mother alone was arrested and charged with Assisting Illegal entry.  The CM told the mother who had pleaded guilty months before her sentencing, that “on your own admission this country provided a safe haven for you from abuse in Haiti, you are here on a work permit, have lived here for years.  You know quite well the economic strain illegal migration have on this country, you still knowingly facilitated in illegal entry into the Turks and Caicos Islands.”

The sentence of this court is a fine of $12,000 to be paid in 21 days or serve nine months at the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR).

The CM explained to Francois that she had five days to appeal his decision if unsatisfied and he recommended deportation after the date of the payment for the fine has expired or the completion of her prison sentence.

Appearing for the office of the DPP in this matter was Ms. Enjaleek Dickenson.