...the job of Immigration is to protect The Bahamas from illegal immigrants... but... The schools, the churches and the hospitals are off limits to immigration officers... so... The Bahamas' Haitian problem continues

Schools, hospitals and churches off limits to Immigration

tribune242 editorial




THIS WEEK Belinda Wilson, president of the Bahamas Union of Teachers, agreed that undocumented Haitian students should be removed from the Bahamas' school system.

While recognising that it was a delicate situation, that no child in the Bahamas can be denied an education, and that no roundup of Haitian students whose parents are illegally in this country, should be carried out on school property, Ms Wilson said teachers are willing to assist Immigration in identifying the students for their eventual removal. She was supporting an intention allegedly made by Immigration Director Jack Thompson in a speech to the New Providence Association of Public High School Principals' annual retreat. However, Mr Thompson denied a newspaper report - not a Tribune report - that quoted him as saying that the country has to "flush out" undocumented immigrants who are enrolled in the country's school system "absorbing our resources."

Mr Thompson denied any suggestion that the Immigration Department intends to target these children. He said he made it clear to the educators that education is a fundamental human right which every child is entitled to receive.

"Administrators were told," said Mr Thompson, "that students of foreign nationals attending schools should apply to the Department of Immigration for a residency permit or permit to reside." He said it was "emphasised that while students should not be denied the right of a basic education, records by the Department to Immigration are critical for future applications, or permanent residence or citizenship."

He agreed that the children's issue was a sensitive one and requires professionalism and discretion.

He said that his department, fully appreciating the sensitivity of the matter, always tries to make certain that its policies and actions are in "compliance with international law and acceptable national and international standards and practices."

This is a most difficult situation and unless handled extremely carefully can be turned into a human witch hunt. If vulnerable parents believe that they can be targeted through their school children, there will be a mass exodus from the schools, which then becomes a police problem as the children take to the bush.

The last problem will then be far greater than the first.

The situation of the children is not of easy solution. Many of these children have been born here of parents who have lived in the Bahamas for many years. No child born in the Bahamas after 1973 is automatically a Bahamian citizen. However, at the age of 18 that young person can apply for citizenship. No impediments being in the way, the grant of citizenship should be automatic.

However, a Haitian child born in the Bahamas, does have an impediment to block his automatic citizenship -- his parents are illegal residents. We don't know if over the years the Bahamas and Haitian governments have worked out another thorny problem. However, at one time Haiti did not recognise as Haitian citizens a child born in the Bahamas of Haitian parents. If this is still the position it means that the Bahamas will have many stateless children on its hands. This is indeed a major problem -- an international problem.

Many vocal Bahamians want Haitian children not only removed from the schools, but all undocumented residents -- mostly Haitians -- to be banned from the hospitals and clinics. This is a most shortsighted and dangerous position, and the fastest way to fan an epidemic that could affect us all.

Let these people fear seeking medical help for a disease that could be contagious, and rather than be arrested stay at home, they could infect their family, their neighbours, their community and eventually all of New Providence.

Doctors, for example, swear the Hippocratic Oath, which is one of the oldest binding documents in history. Its principles are still held sacred by doctors today. Doctors swear to treat the sick to the best of their ability, preserve the patient's privacy, teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation, etc. And so doctors, in practising their profession are bound to keep information about their patients secret. They are also obliged to treat them regardless of who they are or from where they come.

Mr Thompson has made it clear that the job of Immigration is to protect the Bahamas from illegal immigrants, but he stresses that it is a task that must be carried out with sensitivity.

"We never send any immigration officers to the schools," said Mr Thompson. "The schools, the church and the hospitals are off limits."

This does not remove the Haitian problem, which has to be approached in another way.

July 07, 2011

tribune242 editorial

Caribbean Blog International

...this is the right time for Bahamians to do better

Resolving to Do Better
The Bahama Journal Editorial



As this opens on a truly bloody note, some of our people yet stand, pray and hope for the coming of a better day; and for sure, some of these people have made it their sworn resolve to do their part in making this a reality.

We so swear.

Sadly, some others can be expected to do as they always have; which is that they will carry on as if there was no tomorrow. And so, barring some miracle, there will remain that primordial struggle between good and evil.

For our part, we would like to have a situation where more Bahamians could come to see the wisdom in so comporting themselves - that they – quite literally - love their neighbors as they love themselves.

Were they to move in this direction – that is of forging a greater sense of community- they would see to it that this great little nation that is ours would love and care for all its children; take care of their elders and otherwise work to make this place safer and healthier.

Evidently, things are today tending in the direction of disaster.

This trend can and should be reversed.

Yet again, this requires purposeful action.

And so we would dare suggest that Bahamians should – as Booker T. Washington once suggested – put their buckets down wherever they happen to be.

As a consequence, then, when it comes to schooling, we would like to see a situation where schools are put on a path where they can act in place of the parent; thus gearing themselves to really being and becoming places of respite and civility – incubators of a new and better Bahamas; this instead of the brutal spaces that some have become in these hard times.

Indeed, when we reference how Bahamians might wish to become more introspective, attentive should also be put on the way we worship, how we serve and the witness we bring – as believers- to the challenge of living in a time and in a place where sin and crime abound.

And for sure, here we must reference the stark contrast between the adornment of certain places of worship and the social degradation that is to be found on some of our nation’s main thoroughfares –some of them places where the hungry, the demented and the homeless wander about as so much human riff-raff.

This is an abomination.

Indeed, we would also mention – in the same vein- that there are circumstances and situations where wealth and poverty obscenely cavort; with the rich and the powerful very often oblivious to the sad situation facing some of their countrymen.

Yet again, there can and should be some resolve for those who have eyes to see, to do just that: open their eyes to the poverty and distress around them.

As true too is the fact that some of our fellow-Bahamians are today ill as a result of choices they have made. But chosen or not, these people still need assistance. And for sure, there can and should be some resolve in the coming year for them to get the help they need so that they could keep body and soul together.

Here take note that even as we note that people should take some major part in their own struggles, we note also that – as social animals - human beings must rely on others – whether these others happen to be family, neighbors or friends.

And just as true happens to be the fact that once an administration is sworn in, it is obliged – under the law – to govern in a true and good manner on behalf of all the people.

With this as guiding principle, then, there should be in the year that is ahead some resolve on the part of those who would lead to go beyond what seems to be a built in tendency towards tribalism and a winner-take all mentality in how we run things.

Such a resolve should imply that matters that are social in nature –like crime - should not be so treated that they become political footballs; with name-calling and finger pointing thrown in for good measure.

And yet again – as far as resolutions go- some major effort must be undertaken to so overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system that when people are charged for them to be brought to justice sooner rather than later.

Evidently, here resolve must be matched by requisite action. And for sure, if there are costs that must be made, Bahamians must resolve – as a people- to pay for whatever they get.

In the absence of such a commitment, they would be doing little more than wishing and hoping on a dream.

In truth, this is the right time for Bahamians to do better.

They should and they can.

January 27, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International