The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE government is negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Organisation for Migration to garner international assistance with illegal immigration.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell yesterday said the document will also assist the government in crafting policies to tackle migration.

He said: “It will lay out in proposed form the steps which they can take to assist us.

Amongst the steps would be updating the 2006 report that they did on migrants in the Bahamas.

Mr Mitchell added: “This will be a very useful diagnostic for us to design policies to deal with migration. A migration profile is also likely to be developed for the country.”

In his address to the UN General Assembly over the weekend, Prime Minister Perry Christie charged that nations of the world must intensify global efforts to eliminate poverty.

He explained that removal of structural imbalances that impede economic growth in certain sections of the Caribbean would go a long way in stemming the tide of illegal immigration to the Bahamas.

He described illegal immigration as a matter of the “highest national priority” for the country.

Yesterday, Mr Mitchell said: “The Ministry now has its marching orders to follow up on those themes.”