Family of U.S. Student Jailed In Cayman Islands Calls on Trump to Intervene

An 18-year-old Georgia pre-med student is in jail after breaking a mandatory 14-day quarantine in the Cayman Islands, and now her grandmother is calling on Trump to intervene.

Skylar Mack traveled to the Cayman Islands to watch her boyfriend compete in a jet-ski competition when she broke protocol that called for a 14-day isolation while wearing a wristband and given a cell phone to track her movements. Mack signed a document agreeing not to remove her wristband nor leave her place of isolation, according to her lawyer.

Mack was charged with breaking her agreement, and her boyfriend was charged with aiding and abetting. They both were given 40 hours of community service and fined $2,600 each. Prosecutors appealed the sentence, calling it too lenient, and both were resentenced to four months in prison.

Judge Roger Chapple explained his decision at the hearing on December 15. “This was as flagrant a breach as could be imagined; it was borne of selfishness and arrogance,” Chapple said, according to the Cayman Compass newspaper. “This was entirely deliberate and planned, as evidenced by her desire to switch her wristband the day before to a looser one that she was then able to remove.” 

The Cayman Islands have reported 311 cases of COVID-19 and two deaths.

Jeanne Mack, the woman’s grandmother, says that Skylar is “pretty hysterical now” and just wants to come home. The family has appealed directly to Trump, whose office wrote back that her case would be forwarded to the appropriate federal agency, likely the State Department.

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