Detention centre reopens to hold Cuban migrants

| 06/10/2018 | 7 Comments
Cayman News Service

Cuban migrant boat on Cayman Brac, 28 Sept 2018

(CNS): Officials have revealed that the Cayman Islands Department of Immigration (DoI) has reopened the  Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) to accommodate the eleven Cuban migrants who arrived in Cayman Brac last week after being at sea for almost a week. A government press release said the nine men and two women were transferred to the facility on Grand Cayman Thursday afternoon (4 October). The group was forced to come ashore in the Brac after their broken vessel was sighted by immigration and customs officers who, because of safety concerns, towed the boat and the migrants to shore, where they were assessed by local physicians.

Following protests by some migrants who had been at the detention facility for some time, in some cases years, and facing questions over the right of those claiming asylum as well as the poor state of the centre, the IDC was closed and migrant were released to approved DoI accommodation.

The release stated that since then, “officials have conducted repairs and renovations as necessary to ensure the facility is a safe, suitable, clean and a healthy environment for all occupants”.

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Comments (7)

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  1. Sofia the best says:

    Is easy to say all that when u dont have compassion. Read more about comunism and then u can give ure opinion. This people risking theire lifes crussing the sea looking for freedom. U think they have it easy in chba ? U go for uee self into the weatern side of cuba and u see for ure self. Some died in the see in trying to get freedom . They left back theire family. U leave good in cayman but with out God in ure hearts….

  2. Anonymous says:

    When is anyone in our Immigration department and Government going to just use good old common sense (which is rare these days) and process these migrants immediately and send them back to Cuba? Why in the name of God are we stuck with keeping them here at our expense?

    CNS: I do not know that this is true in this case but in the past the delay in repatriation has been on the Cuban side, not the Cayman side.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    We need more Caymanians. There is not enough population for tax purposes.

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  4. Andypandy says:

    Here we go again, hold them for a year and release them into society again ?
    Costing public millions?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Andy… you have a better idea?

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      • Hmmmm says:

        Put them on a cayman airways flight to cuba and let them off. People only leaving cuba nowadays for ecomonic reasons. I guess word got to cuba that the detention centre was newly renovated and vacant.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Fix fheir boats and send them on their merry ways. Their final destination is usually not ” our land of soft breezes anyway.

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