Chained to a chair at JFK

A 19-year-old Trinidadian girl was detained by United States Immigration officers on her arrival at John F Kennedy International Airport, New York, on Saturday. Kelly Jobity was shackled to a chair and will be kept there until she is returned to Trinidad today.

“Let my child go! She is not a terrorist! We have no terrorists in this country!” declared Gerald Jobity, 60, father of the detained teenager. Kelly’s ordeal began when she left Trinidad on Saturday around 5.30 am on a Trans-Meridian charter flight to New York to attend a Deliverance Temple crusade scheduled for Brooklyn on February 25. However Candace Lewis, a friend who was supposed to meet Kelly on Saturday, was left bewildered when she did not meet Kelly after her flight arrived some three hours earlier at JFK Airport.

In a telephone interview from her New York home yesterday, Lewis told Newsday that after making several inquiries with Airport and Immigration officials at JFK, she learnt that Kelly was not being allowed to enter the US and was going to be sent back to Trinidad today. Lewis said she was prevented from seeing Kelly by US Customs officials but eventually managed to get a six-minute telephone conversation with the young woman. She said Kelly told her that she had been “chained to a chair” since she arrived and was never told why she was detained. Lewis added that she subsequently spoke to a Customs official who said he could not say why Kelly was arrested. “She (Kelly) was crying. She just wants to go home,” Lewis said.

Lewis said she had a 15-minute phone conversation with Kelly at 8.45 am yesterday, in which Kelly said she was being sent back to Trinidad today. Kelly informed Lewis that she was granted one meal over the last 48 hours but was not freed from her shackles or allowed to change her clothes. Lewis said another Customs official told her that Kelly would have been sent home yesterday but Trans-Meridian does not fly to Trinidad on Sundays. Lewis was confused by the events of the last 24 hours because Kelly attended a similar convention last year and encountered no problems from US authorities on that occasion. Lewis’ father, Dr Michael Lewis, is the pastor of the upcoming crusade.

“As a concerned father, I would like to know what is the problem between this Government and (US President George W) Bush. My child is not supposed to be shackled. She is not from Africa, she is from Trinidad. She was born and grew up here,” a visibly distraught Gerald Jobity told Newsday. He said when he called the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain on Saturday, an official told him everything would be done to release Kelly. “I want to know if they are locking up the Jobity family in New York because I had intentions of leaving the country. I want to know if all Jobities that going from Trinidad to New York, they (US) are jailing them as terrorists. I am asking this Government what they could do for this situation that is going on right now,” he declared. Jobity said Kelly was a God-fearing person and was never involved in bacchanal, only in the activities of her church, where she played the drums.

Jobity revealed that his wife Linda left Trinidad yesterday at 1 am for New York to attend the same crusade and he had no idea whether she, too, was detained by US authorities. However Lewis informed Newsday that she contacted the person with whom Linda had arranged to stay in New York and was told that Linda arrived in New York safely and without incident. Jobity said he could not understand why his daughter was detained because she recently acquired one of the new visas from the US Embassy which includes photo and fingerprint identification. Lewis said Linda Jobity may not have raised alarm bells with US authorities because she was an elderly person but Kelly may have been targetted because the US Department of Homeland Security keeps a close watch on persons between the ages of 18 to 25 entering the United States.