The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

A RECENT spike in the number of Chinese housed at the Detention Centre is due to these immigrants being apprehended after their human smuggling schemes have gone awry.

While giving a briefing to reporters, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said yesterday that of the 129 migrants at the centre as of June 1, 42 were Chinese nationals.

The group also included 46 Cubans, 17 Haitians, eight Jamaicans, five Dominicans, two Ecuadorians and two Hondurans.

The Carmichael Road facility also had one national each from Ghana, Nigeria, East Africa, Kenya, Gambia, Suriname and Colombia.

Mr Mitchell indicated that the huge spike in the number of Chinese at the Detention Centre comes as result of cracking down on smuggling operations.

He said immigration officials have found that some Chinese migrants gain entry to the Bahamas by coming as a tourist, over staying on their allotted travel time and then try to enter the United States through illegal means from Bimini and Grand Bahama.

He said the process has now been identified and procedures are being generated to limit the problem.

“… The policy of the Parliament is that there is supposed to be a hard knock against anybody who is engaged in this activity, and it seems to me that all of us; the judiciary, the executive and the legislature, including our citizens at large, ought to be on the same page about the kind of penalties that are inflicted on people that engage in this activity,” he said.

Recently, officials in Grand Bahama apprehended 28 Chinese and one Colombian.

The group was taken into custody in the Lucaya area of Freeport on Sunday.

Mr Mitchell also condemned notions that major investment projects like Baha Mar and the Pointe were providing a means for Chinese to enter the country illegally.

The Fox Hill MP insisted that the managers of those projects have to complete a stringent bond process to qualify those workers for employment in the Bahamas.

He indicated that all documented Chinese workers tied to the Baha Mar project have returned to China and all workers attached to the Pointe project are accounted for.

Meanwhile, addressing the issues with Cubans at the centre, Mr Mitchell said immigration officials were working “expeditiously” to rid the centre of all Cuban, highlighting their likelihood of inciting confrontations and damaging property.