Bahamians of Haitian descent in The Bahamas political arena

Smith: No Problem With Idea Of Haitian-Bahamian Political Party

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

HUMAN rights activist Fred Smith, QC, said he sees no problem with Bahamians of Haitian descent organising to form political parties, insisting that the country is on its way to this group of society emerging as parliamentary leaders.

Mr Smith, who is also the president of the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA), told The Tribune yesterday that the stigma in the Bahamas that Haitians are of lesser value should be done away with.

He again chastised the Christie administration over its immigration restrictions maintaining that the government has encouraged a culture of hatred toward Haitians.

“Bahamians of Haitian descent are a large part of our society,” Mr Smith said. “So without doubt you will see people of that heritage as members of parliament and at the forefront of the political arena.

“I don’t see what is wrong with it. People have the freedom of association under the Constitution.

“I see nothing wrong with people promoting self interest in political parties for social benefits for different parts of the community.”

Mr Smith said it is time for the conversation in the country to focus on how immigration can create diversification.

He called on the government to follow the example of countries, including Canada and Korea; countries he said encourage different nationalities to contribute to shaping society.

“The Bahamas should have a different conversation. We should be saying yes to a form of immigration that creates diversity and multilingualism in the same way that Canada, Korea and China does.

“I think the Christie administration has done a great disservice. It is awful to be maligned and treated as second-class citizens.

“This kind of mentality that the Cabinet of the Bahamas is promoting is dangerous. We are hating our own people,” Mr Smith said.

He insisted that these latest comments should not be construed as supporting illegal migration.

Mr Smith and the GBHRA have been involved in an ongoing row with the government over its newest immigration restrictions. Mr Smith has likened the Carmichael Road Detention Centre to Auschwitz, a former Nazi concentration camp. He has also suggested that the Bahamas government is carrying out ethnic cleansing with the restrictions.

However, Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell on Monday shot back at those criticisms calling them a “highly personal campaign” against him.

“The question is this, which must be put to them: whose side are you on?” Mr Mitchell asked.

“The side of Bahamians and our national patrimony (or) are you siding with enemies of the country who would undermine the country’s security and well-being?

“These activists like to portray this as some poor migrants who are simply trying to make a better life, but increasingly this is a portrait of a sophisticated smuggling operation which is big business and in the process is threatening to swamp our country.”

With six more months to go in the fiscal year, repatriations conducted as of December 2014 have exhausted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration’s deportation budget.

Mr Mitchell has revealed that the Department of Immigration has spent around $1.7m to repatriate 4,628 foreign nationals in 2014.

February 18, 2015

Tribune 242

Louby Georges on employment opportunities for persons of Haitian descent in The Bahamas

Descendants Of Haitians Finding It Harder To Get A Job

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE government’s new immigration policy has severely affected employment opportunities for persons of Haitian descent, according to activist Louby Georges, who charged that immigrants cannot fully comply with regulations because there is no supporting legislation.

With no legal framework three months after the policy was first introduced, Mr Georges, host of the Kreyol Connection, said affected persons have been fired and many remain in limbo because processing for the new requirements, namely the belonger’s permit, has not yet started.

“The Department of Immigration has an application form for something that does not exist,” Mr Georges said, “there is no such thing as a belonger’s permit.

“(Immigration Director William) Pratt told me in his office, he said ‘well to be honest the problem is that there is no legislation in place to support the belonger’s permit, so we are hoping that in the next two weeks we can present a bill to parliament and hoping it can be debated and then passed, and then we can start reviewing applications, and then we can start issuing (permits)’.”

“Persons are being laid off and fired as a result of an announcement made first on the floor of the House of Assembly from September 17, 2014. The official opposition is afraid to speak up on the issue because they don’t want to appear that they are siding with the Haitian community or siding with the immigrants,” he said, “because Bahamians generally think that Haitians or anything to do with Haitians is illegal or bad”.

Mr Georges spoke out against the immigration policy at a lecture hosted by the Bahamas Bar Association last week Thursday. He described the experience of persons born in the Bahamas of Haitian descent as “20 times” more severe than challenges faced by ordinary citizens, and charged that there were no measures to ensure that deported persons can access constitutional rights once eligible.

On November 1, 2014, the government introduced a wider immigration policy that, among other things, required every non-Bahamian living in the country to have a passport of their nationality with proof of their status to live and work in The Bahamas.

On Tuesday, Immigration Director William Pratt confirmed that the department has received many calls from concerned employers over the legal status of their employees under the new policy, adding that the matter is adjudicated on a case-by-case basis.

Mr Pratt stressed that it was not the department’s intention to jeopardise employment and encouraged individuals to seek assistance with his office for alternative options to secure a work permit.

“They are entitled to have a work permit, of course,” he said. “If they’re already employed and lived here all their lives, some employers have contacted us about persons in that category. Some of these persons, their citizenship is already before the board awaiting decision. So on a case by case basis, we wouldn’t object.”

Mr Pratt added: “Some people are already employed, Bahamians hired them based on their birth certificates. They were born here, grew up here, they were hired as Bahamians, but technically they are not. We will work on a case by case basis on those issues,” he added, “most of those persons their application is complete and they will be sworn in shortly.”

Mr Pratt explained that work and residency permits were always a requirement but over the years enforcement was relaxed. Since the new policy was introduced, he confirmed that “many employers” have called or sent letters to the department.

He added: “Those persons who are born in The Bahamas, according to our Constitution their citizenship is not automatic. So because of the constitutional law under the Immigration Act they require work and residence permits but over the years we never really enforced it, to the extent there were many persons who got jobs and were working and their application (was still being processed), but going on forward now, once this belonger’s permit comes on stream then it won’t be an issue because persons would have it from infancy.”

The resident belonger’s permit will give those born in The Bahamas who have a right to apply for citizenship under the Constitution some form of status while their application is pending, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said last December.

“It is only issued to the children of Bahamians whose parents got their citizenship pursuant to Article 3(2) of the Constitution and were born outside The Bahamas, or to those children whose parents were lawfully in The Bahamas and they were born here,” he said at the time.

February 05, 2015

Tribune 242