Premier Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to constructing a proper detention centre for illegal immigrants to meet the needs of the territory and securely house those placed at the facility.
This comes amid growing concern on the use of the Castle Maria Hotel as a temporary detention facility.
In recent months, the facility has seen over a dozen detainees escape – with the most recent being Guyanese National Ianna Thomas, who was later recaptured by local authorities.
Premier Wheatley said that his administration is looking to quickly move forward with plans for the construction of a designated detention centre, and has been making notable progress in this regard.
“In the medium term, we are quickly moving towards building a detention centre and of course we had a site visit the other day and we’ll be quickly moving towards doing the survey work which is required to be able to advance that as well as getting designs done on an urgent basis… we are right now allocating the resources needed to be able to build that in the 2023 budget,” he said.
In the interim, however, Dr. Wheatley says that discussions are ongoing with security personnel and the administration of the detention centre to determine what can be done to increase security at Castle Maria and avoid future escapes.
“We’ve sought to increase the security at Castle Maria … We’re certainly displeased with persons escaping repeatedly from Castle Maria so we’ve engaged the security and establishment on measures that can be taken to prevent that from taking place,” he said.
Wheatley also lauded law enforcement, as well as the anonymous tipster who would have been instrumental in the recapturing of escapee Ianna Thomas.