in Bermuda have been dashed by Immigration officials who put them back on a plane and sent them home.

The youngsters, seven-year-old Ray Albert Eversly and his cousin 10-year-old Tia-Lisa Harris, arrived together from Boston last week to visit their aunt.

They, along with Tia-Lisa's best friend Crystal Furtado, planned to spend a month enjoying the sun, sand and beaches.

But instead the two cousins spent more than four hours in a "cold, small'' room at the Airport on June 29 before being placed back on a plane to the US.

And yesterday their frustrated aunt, Mrs. Jenny Trott, said neither she nor the children understood why they were denied entry.

Mrs. Trott said she was paged by Immigration when she arrived at the Airport around 1 p.m. to pick the youngsters up.

"The children's luggage had gone missing,'' she recalled. "So when an Immigration officer approached and said there was a problem, I thought it was about the luggage.

"But she (the Immigration officer) said the children did not have the legal documents they needed to re-enter the US.'' However, Mrs. Trott said both children had return tickets to the US, valid Barbadian passports, and valid visas.

She also noted that the youngsters had visited her before and had parents who are legal US citizens.

But she said the children were still taken into a "little'' room which she was not allowed to enter until about three hours later.

"Up to the last 15 minutes that they were here they did not know what was going on,'' Mrs. Trott said. "They were just sitting huddled together with a coat over them because it was cold in that room. They had nothing to eat or drink.'' Eventually, she said, the children were placed on a flight back to Boston because Immigration officials said if they returned to the US on the same day, it would be as if they never left.

"It's a sick situation,'' Mrs. Trott said. "These same kids came to Bermuda when Ray was about four. And the little girl resided with me for a whole school year when she was five and her mother was having some problems.

"In fact, she attended Southampton Glebe.

"So I want to know if the criteria to have these children here has changed since that time.'' Mrs. Trott said one of her sisters in Boston contacted a lawyer there and was told that the children were treated unfairly.

She also noted that she and her sisters "spent oodles of money to get the children here and to get this situation straightened out''.

But, she said: "We cannot afford to hire a lawyer to come down here and fight this.

"All we want to know is what did they (the children) need that they did not have before or if something changed drastically from the last time they travelled here.'' "They were treated very heavy-handedly and I think something should be done about it,'' Mrs. Trott added.

"The children are asking why no one wants them to come here. They want to know why they can't visit me.'' Mrs. Trott said she contacted Chief Immigration Officer Mr. Neville Smith.

He was informed by Immigration officers that the children did not have the necessary documents, she said.

But, Mrs. Trott added, Mr. Smith also did not know which documents the children were lacking.

Mr. Smith could not be reached for comment yesterday.