The Bahamas and the illegal immigration debate: ...as a matter of urgency, The Bahamian government must ascertain the number of undocumented immigrants that exist in The Islands...

The immigration fiasco pt. 1

By Arinthia S. Komolafe

Many Bahamians were offended and outraged by the remarks made by President Michel Martelly of the Republic of Haiti during his recent visit to The Bahamas.  During his time here, Martelly paid courtesy calls on the governor general, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition and individuals of Haitian heritage, albeit not in that order.

Martelly’s visit came as a shock to the majority of Bahamians who had been unaware of his impending visit to The Bahamas.  Our prime minister indicated during a press conference held on February 11, 2012, four days after Martelly’s initial arrival that The Bahamas government had not invited Martelly, but rather he had been notified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday February 4, 2012, a non-working day, that Martelly intended to stop in The Bahamas en route to Mexico.  It was later confirmed that very day that Martelly would remain a day and a night in The Bahamas.  In fact, the president arrived in The Bahamas on the evening of February 7 and departed on February 8, 2012.

It seems fair to say that The Bahamas government erred by not officially informing the Bahamian people that Martelly would make an official visit to The Bahamas.  The president had left Haiti to visit Venezuela and Panama where he was expected to remain two days each in both countries from February 3 to February 7.  Martelly traveled to Venezuela to attend the 11th Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) and to Panama to discuss matters pertaining to Haitians living in Panama and the delivery of visas to Haitians by the Panamanian government.  It is reported that on short notice, Martelly decided to extend his travels to include the countries of The Bahamas and Curacao.

It is reported that the Haitian government issued a statement through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing the Haitian people of Martelly’s adjusted itinerary.  The question remains that if in fact our government had been aware of Martelly’s visit from Saturday February 4, why wasn’t the Bahamian public notified?  It is apparent that thousands of individuals of Haitian descent in The Bahamas had been duly informed as evidenced by the attendance at the Church of God’s auditorium.

During Martelly’s recent visit to Curacao, he was greeted at the airport by the prime minister of Curacao, Gerrit Schotte, and other dignitaries.  Subsequently the Haitian diplomatic envoy and Curacao dignitaries attended a meeting with persons of Haitian origin on the specific request of Martelly.  It is worth noting that nationals of Curacao were also present at the aforementioned gathering.  The national anthems of both countries were sung and Martelly made remarks in English when addressing the people of Curacao and in Creole when addressing the people of Haitian descent.  The actions of the Curacao government evidence an intention to unify relations between both countries as opposed to divide.  In light of the events that unfolded this week, it can be argued that the actions of The Bahamas government speak otherwise.  Bahamians would have been equally interested to hear the remarks of Martelly.

The normal course of protocol for an official visit from a head of state would have been to receive a formal written request from the Haitian Embassy in The Bahamas addressed to the chief of protocol suggesting dates for the visit, names of individuals with whom the head of state would like to meet and the purpose of the visit (i.e., the specific topics to be discussed).

The protocol department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) would have determined availability and arranged the official itinerary of Martelly.  As mentioned, the details of President Martelly’s visit were confirmed on Saturday, February 4, 2012.  Martelly arrived in The Bahamas on Tuesday, February 7, 2012.  The Bahamas MOFA had the entire working days of the 6th and 7th to inform the Bahamian people of Martelly’s visit and his proposed itinerary, just as the Haitian MOFA did in Haiti.  Protocol and diplomacy appear to have escaped The Bahamas government on this matter which appears to have conducted protocol in reverse.

The reaction

The overwhelming consensus among Bahamians is that our prime minister’s response to the matter was unacceptable to say the least.  What is clear is that our prime minister appears to be out of touch with the concerns of his people.  Moreover, the silence of most members of Parliament on this issue leaves little to be desired in the face of the public discussion that has taken place on this matter.

The recent visit has sparked the age old conversation on illegal immigration in our country, particularly among Haitian nationals.  Haiti is a country that has been plagued by socio-economic and political instability.  The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the United States of America have primarily carried the burden of housing Haitian nationals in search of political asylum or refugee status.  There is no doubt that CARICOM members would welcome trade opportunities with Haiti that will be mutually beneficial for our nations.  A healthy and prosperous Haiti is in the best interest of all; The Bahamas included.

Nevertheless, the matter of illegal immigration in our country must be addressed by the government.  It is wrong for Bahamians and parliamentarians to gloss over this issue of illegal immigration and allege that Bahamians are discriminative, racist and prejudiced in an attempt to silence Bahamians on this matter.  Bahamians are generally welcoming people and recognize the contributions that foreigners make to build this country.  However, this fact cannot be confused with the importance of enforcing Bahamian laws on illegal immigration.  It is worth noting that other countries such as Jamaica and Barbados are also faced with the same challenges.

Many CARICOM countries already find it difficult to meet budget requirements with their limited resources and constrained revenue sources.  Many have shared in the burdens of Haiti’s socio-economic and political instability through increased illegal immigration.  Many have also provided aid and assistance to the government of Haiti over the years.

The Haitian presence

In The Bahamas, there is a gray area that is expanding and will continue to have a vast impact upon our socio-economic position if we do not address the matter with expediency.  There are so-called ‘shantytowns’ existing all over New Providence and throughout the Family Islands that successive governments have failed to clean up.  Allegedly illegal immigrants of Haitian descent occupy Bahamian land free of charge, their children attend Bahamian public schools and they also utilize healthcare services.  Bahamian taxpayers’ funds make it possible for government-run entities to function.  In this sense, Bahamians believe they have every right to speak on the matter of illegal immigration and the effects it has upon Bahamian society.

Separate and apart from migrants that came here illegally, there are a group of dispossessed individuals who are aware of the fact that they have a constitutional right and are being overlooked.  These individuals were born in The Bahamas and in most cases educated here.  We must do our best to regularize such individuals.  As long as the constitution provides the means, the constitutional right of this group of individuals should be honored without delay.  What The Bahamas government must be careful not to do is to impose upon the Bahamian people the extreme liberal policy that Martelly is suggesting regarding our constitution in light of our very own economic position.  To grant individuals born in The Bahamas to non-Bahamians citizenship upon birth will most certainly open the floodgates for increased migration to The Bahamas.  Such a policy could negatively impact the preservation of the indigenous Bahamian population, who like the remainder of the Caribbean generally have a lower birth rate than Haitians.  For instance, The Bahamas has a population of approximately 350,000; Barbados, 280,000; Jamaica, 2.8 million; Dominica, 72,000 and Curacao, 142,000.  All of these countries, who together house a growing population of Haitians descendants, have not jointly accumulated the total population of Haiti, which is estimated to be 9.7 million.

More importantly and as a matter of urgency, The Bahamas government must ascertain the number of undocumented immigrants that exist in the country.  The Netherland Antilles launched an immigration amnesty program called the “Brooks Tower Accord” that provided for undocumented aliens in the Netherland Antilles to register themselves, receive temporary permits and therefore legalize their status.  The registration lasted for six weeks from November 3 – December 15, 2009.  The agreement covered three categories.  Immigrants who arrived before December 31, 2001 fell in Category I were able to apply for a permit on their own merit.  Immigrants who arrived between January 1, 2002 to January 1 2006, fell in Category II and required their employers to apply on their behalf.  Finally, immigrants who arrived after January 1, 2006 were not guaranteed regularization and would more than likely have to leave the country or be repatriated.  Whereas there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing the illegal immigration problem, our leaders should explore programs of this nature in formulating a solution and a strategy to the way forward.

Bahamians must continue to discuss this matter in the attempt to move our leaders to make significant progress on illegal immigration.  We have elected successive governments to protect our borders, among other things, and they have been found wanting on the issue of illegal immigration. One thing is certain, we must continue to monitor the socio-economic and political position of Haiti to provide assistance where necessary.

 

•Arinthia S. Komolafe is an attorney-at-law.  Comments can be directed at: arinthia.komolafe@komolafelaw.com

Feb 16, 2012

The immigration fiasco pt. 2

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

We live in a sick society, not because of immigrants... because of biggity Bahamians who hate themselves and don't want anyone to know about it... That self-hate is the cancer that is eating us from the inside out

By NOELLE NICOLLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
tribune242
nnicolls@tribunemedia.net




ON THE matter of squatter settlements, the government is being misleadingly vague about how much information it has on the squatter problem when in fact the government has been mining information on squatter settlements in an organized manner for years. The most recent data from a government study that was internally published in January 2011 indicates there are 38 documented squatter settlements in New Providence, for which only 10 are known to be on government land.

In the 26 cases where the land tenure is known, the overwhelming majority - 61 per cent - of these housing communities are located on private land. Between 2004 and 2010 several of these settlements were converted into housing sub-divisions. Pride Estates, Dignity Gardens, Mandarin Close Subdivision and Ross Davis Estates all stand where squatter settlements once existed.

In the case of Pride Estates, reliable sources have told me that Bahamian police officers and defence force officers who were squatting on the land counted themselves amongst the many who got land in the regularized subdivision. I say that because Bahamians love to put a colour, an accent and a status to squatters when very often they are speaking about those who they count amongst their own.

All in all, the total size of squatter settlements in New Providence, measured by structure count, is 940, according to well-placed Tribune sources. There was a net increase in the size of squatter settlements between 2004 and 2010, with the number of structures increasing by 407 and decreasing by 238. Well placed sources say the government knows exactly how many Bahamians and how many legal Haitians inhabit those dwellings. This would seem plausible based on the mere fact that immigration raids into squatter settlements target those who are illegal. This is not to dismiss the fact that residents with status are harassed, sometimes to a severe degree, during these operations.

Bahamian people have sanctioned the growth and development of squatter settlements by virtue of their own administrative negligence, and failure to establish a proper plan for the integration of its immigrant community. As a result, people, Bahamian and non-Bahamian, have established families and livelihoods in squatter settlements. Regardless of how one judges the living standards in these settlements, they are at the end of the day housing communities. And how irresponsible is it for Bahamian people to believe they have the unabated right to destroy these communities at any and all cost or expense. That is a recipe for social upheaval, which is what Bahamians continue to bring on themselves.

History and geography played a large role in the integrated society in which we now live, but we were also participants in the creation of this reality, and now we selfishly do not want to accept who we are. Every Bahamian family, including my own, has a story to tell over the past 38 years of independence and beyond of a Haitian national who they employed, a Guyanese national who they were taught by or a Jamaican national who wiped their backsides as a child. We should not be ashamed of that. How could we? "These people" formed our community; in many instances they became a part of our biological family. And now we want to raise hell because the immigrant community over the years integrated into the society as best as we allowed them to. Now we want to raise hell because people who were born and bred in the Bahamas want to call themselves Bahamian.

The people living in squatter settlements have developed communities as best they could in order to serve a Bahamian labour force that employs them. Now, Bahamians think of Haitians as our slave masters, those who once were good enough to cook our food, wash our clothes and nurse our suckling babies, but are not good enough to live in our houses, eat our food or cohabitate with our children.

The Haitian community has been pushed to the margins by the very people who gave birth to them, literally and figuratively. Many of the so-called upstanding Bahamian men in society, who have sweet-hearting down to a science, have children born of Haitian mothers roaming the streets with no clue of their heritage. These are the children we claim have no right to call themselves Bahamian?

In trying to have a balanced debate about the Haitian community and the problems we so readily ascribe to them I had to ask myself a question: Why is it that in the face of facts, evidence and rational arguments that prove many of the claims levelled against the Haitian community to be false and unfounded that Bahamians are still mulish, inflexible and unyielding in their beliefs?

I found my answer with Dr Amos Wilson, a man who ranks amongst the top black scholars in the modern world. He says it is because the individuals who hold these beliefs have a personal interest in the persistence of those beliefs. In other words, no manner of logic or evidence can dissuade them otherwise, because their beliefs are not based on logic or evidence. They are based on self-reinforcing tall tales. He was speaking about the general beliefs that persistently linger about the African race, but his thoughts are more than relevant in relation to our beliefs of the immigrant community.

Unfortunately, Haitians take the heat, but the Bahamian view of "the other" is all the same, except when it comes to those who arrive in private jets with their pockets fat and their suntan lotion in toe.

Some Bahamians have a strange concept of a pure blooded Bahamian or a real Bahamian that I simply cannot grasp. You would be hard pressed to find a Bahamian of any and every means over the age of 40 who does not have an immediate family connection to another Caribbean island, the United States or the old empire.

So who are the real Bahamians? We have some people around here who are the descendants of other people who came here as "masters", procreated on Bahamian soil, passed on property and wealth gained under an illegal an illegitimate colonial system, and happened to stick around until we negotiated an independence. Are they the real Bahamians? Many of these people, who are the inheritors of ill-gotten wealth: are they the real Bahamians?

Between May 2007 and June 2010, the government approved 10,012 permits to reside, and another 22,839 permits between May 2002 and May 2007. Like it or not, the Bahamas has an enormous immigrant community, living and working legally in the country. In that same eight year time period, the government granted 3,227 citizenships; 2,747 permanent residency applications and 3,792 spousal permits. Bahamians need to wake up. We are a multicultural society and our misdirected hate is unnecessarily stirring social tension.

Our immigration policies are literally tearing families apart. I grew up with a friend whose professional parents lived here on a work permit. We grew up together from primary school all the way to high school. The government eventually naturalized her and her siblings but refused to do so with her parents, who had been contributing members of society for decades. My friend's parents were force to move back to their country of birth after establishing their roots in the Bahamas and growing their seeds in Bahamian soil. Many Bahamians would look at this case as an example of the successful implementation of our immigration policy. I say what a shame.

If I were a Bahamian-born child of Haitian parents, who were legally employed to a Bahamian family in the 1970s, and I came of age to apply for citizenship in the 1990s, and because of some procedure inefficiency, or some misplaced political cowardice, 20 years later I was still without citizenship, I would rightfully be upset and fully deserving of some due process. Why, if the government announced, it was going to take my file out of the filing cabinet and figure out what was the hold up, should Bahamians be outraged at that?

Had my grandfather not been a Progressive Liberal Party supporter in the early 1990s and my Jamaican-born mother not been a beloved teacher of many Bahamian children in the public school system, her application for citizenship might have been counted amongst those now infamous 1,300.

I am so sick of politicians manipulating information to stoke xenophobic fears for their own political advantage, and the nerve that they would do so in the name of their love for the Bahamas. Branville McCartney, who is under advisement by the one and only Loftus Roker, is currently milking all he can from the furor around the Ministry of Housing's activities in Mackey Yard and recent disclosures by Brent Symonette, Minister of Immigration.

After Mr McCartney claimed the government was attempting to "secretly regularize thousands of non-Bahamians on the run up to election," Mr Symonette refuted the claims and suggested that Mr McCartney was perhaps misled by the grapevine's reporting of a new initiative at the Department of Immigration.

That initiative he said was the government's employment of 12 people to investigate the status of some 1,300 applications that have been sitting dormant for years.

These applicants have nothing to do with the former residents of Mackey Yard, or the current subdivision being developed.

And yet, Mr McCartney, I suppose in his attempt to make aged political cheese, released his latest statement on the matter of "the 1,300" to say: "The DNA, along with scores of Bahamians across the length and breadth of the Bahamas, is increasingly troubled by the government of the Bahamas' attempt to secretly regularise thousands of non-Bahamians during an election season, while at the same time admittedly following the fashion of the Christie administration and its old 'land give-away' practices."

To use this government initiative, which will hopefully give hundreds of entitled applicants their due process, to advance the completely invented notion that the government is attempting to "secretly regularize thousands of non-Bahamians on the run up to election" is blatantly disingenuous. It is a political strategy taken out of the crudest of political play books being advanced by the so-called "different" political party.

There are sinister efforts at play, trying to tie the Department of Immigration's efforts to the alleged land sale at Mackey Yard.

No one is truly interested in an explanation, the facts of the matter, or doing their own investigation. The many people who are feigning outrage over the airways are simply satisfied with playing up the possibility in order to feed their own egos, their misplaced senses of superiority and righteousness, and to obtain a political advantage.

They are not interested in social unity; they are not interested in peace; they are not interested in taking responsibility as a society.

We live in a sick society, not because of immigrants, because of biggity Bahamians who hate themselves and don't want anyone to know about it.

That self-hate is the cancer that is eating us from the inside out.

July 25, 2011

tribune242

Caribbean Blog International

Bahamas Illegal Immigration Policy Shifts Once Again

By Krystel Rolle ~ Guardian Staff Reporter ~ krystel@nasguard.com:



In an apparent shift once again in its illegal immigration policy, the government has repatriated a group of undocumented Haitians.

Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette, who is also the minister of immigration, told The Nassau Guardian that the 86 Haitians, who were caught on Long Island last weekend, were returned to Haiti yesterday morning.

The immigrants were found by police wandering in the area of Stevens, Long Island on Saturday. The group, which included 77 men and nine women, were transported to New Providence.

"They are back in Haiti," Symonette confirmed.

Asked if the government has shifted its policy, Symonette declined to speak on the matter.

"That's all I want to say at the moment — that we have returned that group to Haiti," he said.

The repatriation exercise comes about two months after a group of 49 Haitian migrants who landed in New Providence in January was charged in court with illegal landing. The men were sent to prison for six months, and the women were sent to the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, along with the children in the group, according to statement from the Department of Immigration.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham changed the policy so that Haitians could be charged and thereby detained for longer periods.

The policy shift came after a 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on January 12, destroying many buildings, killing hundreds of thousands of people and leaving millions more homeless.

Days after the earthquake, Ingraham also announced that Haitian immigrants who were held in the Carmichael Road Detention Centre prior to the disaster were being released and given temporary status. There were a little over 100 Haitian immigrants in the temporary holding facility at the time. Ingraham added that repatriation exercises would be postponed until further notice.

Former Minister of Immigration Vincent Peet told The Guardian yesterday that it is clear that the government has no clear policy.

"I think some Bahamians would be surprised and some would not be surprised that the immigration policy changes almost every week," Peet said.

"The repatriation today by the government clearly indicates a new policy which was not announced to the public. One has to wonder what those illegal immigrants who were detained at the Fox Hill prison and those who were set free are now thinking. The government must be consistent. We are all concerned about the plight of Haitians and Haiti is now gradually recovering. The question is are they at the stage where they can take these immigrants back and if that is the case, then when will the others be repatriated?"

Peet said the government is clearly unfocused as it has no coherent policy. He added that the constant shift is policy is probably confusing to Bahamians.

April 01, 2010

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International