The two year detention of a Tongan national by American Samoa Immigration has been described as unfair.
Toni Foketi was detained by immigration at the Territorial Correctional Facility because his immigration ID had expired, and his sponsor, his wife, had moved to the mainland for work.
The NGO, Alliance for Strengthening Families helped pay for a lawyer so Mr Foketi could eventually go to court for a immigration hearing.
An advocate with the NGO, Brian Loma told Sara Vui-Talitu more about Mr Foketi's ordeal and how he finally was able to leave the territory.
Transcript
BRIAN LOMA :I got to know Tony and his story and situation and we were just really blessed to help him and his family find a new chance for him to start over.
SARA VUI-TALITU : Could you tell us a bit more as to how he ended up being in a correctional facility for two years?
BL: He was over here for family matters he was married here to a lady and one of his sons from a previous marriage is over here in American Samoa as well and his mum is here and he has another son left behind here in American Samoa. So he was over here, he was working and he was married and he got into a little bit of trouble and the resolution from the situation that he got into and at the end of the day he was put on probation and because of the trouble he had got into, the immigration board told him he couldn't renew his ID.
SV :So that meant he couldn't stay in the country?
BL: Yeah. So he was being a responsible father he was taking care of his boy and he was working in a bakery where he was well known for his German buns and then customs eventually decided he needed to be incarcerated for failure to leave and there he stayed for two years. The gentleman and myself hired a lawyer to take the situation to court because he was in immigration hold for all that time without any hearings. And then when we had the hearing the court ruled that he should have left and so by not leaving he had violated probation from the previous incident so he was free to go back but then coming up with the funds and being incarcerated and not having some of the opportunities some places have with work release and things like that he was stuck in jail essentially. We were just fortunate to work with his family and to be able to raise some funds and his family raised half the funding and one of the businessman in the church helped and donated for the son's fare and we were able to send them off together.
SV: So when did they leave?
BL: They left on Thursday morning.
SV: Ok so last week.
BL: Yes, and there is now a direct flight from here in American Samoa to Tonga.
SV: It does seem that something went awry with the process in this case in that he didn't get a hearing for a while.
BL: Yes and well in this situation it seems like when immigration would detain somebody they should have a process to ensure that that person has a speedy departure from this country and there should have been a way for him to go home or to accelerate that process to when he was taken there to the two years before he had a hearing.
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