Hold on Haitian round-ups
BY JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com:
The Department of Immigration has not conducted any illegal Haitian apprehension exercises in six months, The Nassau Guardian has learned.
The department had suspended apprehension exercises following the massive earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which destroyed the capital city on January 12.
Following the disaster, the government also ceased Haitian repatriations and released 102 illegal Haitian migrants who were being held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre.
However, on April 5, the government stated that the apprehension and repatriation of any "new" illegal Haitian migrants had resumed.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette yesterday admitted that no apprehension exercises have been conducted since January.
"If you're wondering if we have gone out on apprehension exercises, no," Symonette said.
Apprehension exercises were commonplace before the earthquake.
Symonette, who has ministerial responsibility for immigration, did not say why the apprehension exercises had not resumed, but earlier this week, he explained that immigration officers are apprehending illegal Haitian migrants as they encounter them.
"In the event (or) in the course of an investigation, if we're out in a neighborhood either doing a review of someone's home or we come across a certain situation, persons have been apprehended (but) not in any great numbers," he said at a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
"If we're advised of or come across any persons that are here illegally, they will be apprehended ... that's been ongoing."
At that press conference, Symonette also revealed that the government does not know the whereabouts of 40 of the 102 migrants who were released from the Detention Centre in January.
The migrants were given six months' temporary status and were asked to return to the department in March.
After the March check-in, they were asked to report back in June.
Symonette said that has not yet happened, but there is no official position on what will happen to those 62 migrants when and if they do report.
"I'll have to consult with my Cabinet colleagues with regard to those," he said, stating that the matter was not a decision he could make unilaterally.
Symonette also admitted that those 40 migrants who did not report to the department in January disregarded the terms of their release.
"We have two different categories: one [comprised of those] who've totally ignored the position and one set that have come in," he said.
In total, 15 women, three children, and 84 men were released from the holding facility.
Speaking at a press conference in January on his government's decision to release the Haitian migrants, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham pointed to a New York Times editorial that said, "Burdening a collapsed country with destitute deportees would be a true crime."
The Bahamas repatriated more than 5,000 undocumented Haitians last year.
In the 2009/2010 fiscal year, the government allocated $1.5 million for repatriation exercises. In the upcoming fiscal year $1 million has been allocated.
Following an emergency meeting in the Dominican Republic several days after the earthquake, Ingraham announced that as part of the temporary immigration policy, undocumented Haitian nationals apprehended in The Bahamas after the disaster would be charged in court so they could be detained for longer periods of time.
That policy has since been abandoned.
June 16, 2010
thenassauguardian
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