The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I write in response to this week’s intemperate attack on human rights attorney Fred Smith, QC, by regular contributor, The Graduate. In that letter, Smith was warned to beware the dangers of hubris by a writer who seems oblivious to the fact that his own words drip with an unthinking arrogance typical of those whose party has recently returned to power.

The Graduate advises Smith not to embarrass The Bahamas on the international stage over immigration issues. This from a writer who was extremely active during the last Christie Administration, commentating on almost every aspect of the Bahamian political scene. During that time, Fred Smith regularly sounded the alarm over abuses by the Immigration Department to human rights groups around the world; he convened a very public hearing on the same issues before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington, DC; and had The Bahamas officially sanctioned by that same body over its treatment of activists.

Yet through all of this, there was not a peep from The Graduate about Smith’s “antics”. Back then, for FNM and its mouthpieces, the controversial attorney was an ally who was merely speaking truth to power; now that the shoe is on the other foot, he is somehow shaming the country. Yet Smith’s message has not changed at all. Apparently, it is OK to embarrass The Bahamas on the world stage so long as the FNM is not the government.

Fred Smith is an odd character, I will admit, and somewhat given to hyperbole, but when it comes to immigration law, he is clearly much more knowledgeable than anyone in this current government, as his repeated victories in court demonstrate. Sadly, the letter writer to whom I am responding seems similarly clueless.

Let’s look at The Graduate’s reasons for warning Smith that he is “skating on thin ice”. What seems to have angered the writer is the suggestion that Haiti should stop accepting Bahamian-born deportees.

Yet it is hard to see why this statement is so controversial. Both Minister of Immigration Brent Symonette and Attorney General Carl Bethel have acknowledged that the Immigration department should not be detaining and deporting Bahamian-born individuals. The Supreme Court has repeatedly and resoundingly upheld this position as well.

The Graduate contends that this category of persons are Haitian citizens, unless and until they are granted Bahamian citizenship, and also claims that this is a position recognised by the United Nations.

First of all, the children of Haitian parents born outside of Haiti can be registered as citizens of Haiti only if and when they are able to prove who their parents are or were, and also prove that the parents themselves are or were citizens of Haiti. Many Bahamian-born individuals face considerable obstacles in fulfilling these conditions – from being unable to afford travel to Haiti to secure the relevant documents, to an inability to find the documents in light of the notoriously backward record keeping in that country, particularly in rural areas. It is unrealistic to think that their parents fled the country of their birth with all of their paperwork in hand.

The result is that many are unable to prove their heritage and thereby gain Haitian citizenship, leaving them effectively stateless if deported. Far from agreeing with the government on this point, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has told The Bahamas repeatedly, since at least 2013 that Bahamian nationality should be granted at birth if the child would otherwise be stateless.

The UNCHR has indeed lent its sanction to repatriation exercises from The Bahamas to Haiti, but not when individuals who are at risk of statelessness are among the deportees. This is exactly the group Smith is asking Haiti to stop accepting. There is no controversy here.

In agreeing not to accept Bahamian-born children, the government of Haiti would actually be adhering to the requirements of the UNCHR that countries not take actions which may increase the likelihood of rendering individuals stateless, as well as the advice of the IACHR, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Americas Network on Statelessness and numerous other international watchdog groups. Indeed, the real embarrassment to the country on the international stage is this stubborn government which refuses to rein in a rogue Immigration Department.

The Graduate goes on to defend the Minnis immigration deadline, suggesting that people born here to foreign parents were given ample time to get their affairs in order before January 1, 2018. The Prime Minister announced his purge in October 2017; anyone who thinks that three months is sufficient time for unregulated individuals to apply for and be granted status displays a woeful ignorance, deliberate or otherwise, about the enormous backlog that has seen thousands of applicants wait for years on end with no word from the Immigration Department.

In addition, applications are routinely and far too casually lost, forcing applicants to once again go through the arduous process of collecting the various documents and gathering the considerable funds necessary to reapply. To some, this has happened more than once.

In any case, following the Prime Minister’s announcement, Immigration aggressively detained individuals who had actually complied with Minnis’ orders and could show receipts for pending work permits, spousal permits, etc. As several of Fred Smith’s successful cases have shown, enforcement officers were uninterested in even seeing their receipts, preferring rather to deprive people of their liberty arbitrarily.

Finally, my friend The Graduate, in the ultimate show of hubris, warns Smith that he “runs the risk of alienating an important constituency…. a community of influential Bahamians who hold no state office or rank in any civil society organisation but who are a part of a whispering army that holds tremendous sway with politicians in shaping national policy” – a group the writer no doubt belongs to: affiliation does tend to artificially inflate importance.

Well, anyone who knows Fred Smith knows that right now he is probably laughing at this thinly veiled and toothless threat. Smith fights his fight in the courts and in the public square. He fought with great success against the Christie administration, without the help of any army of ear-whisperers or backroom consigliere types.

He was probably singlehandedly more instrumental to the PLP’s downfall than Minnis and all of his Cabinet combined, and the FNM had best believe he can do it again if he is pushed that far. The powers that be should not underestimate this QC’s following in this county, nor the great respect in which he is held in the international human rights community.

Smith’s disappointment in the FNM’s performance so far is shared by thousands of voters. Perhaps those shadowy “influencers” and self-styled social commentators like The Graduate should take off their red tinted spectacles for a minute, and actually stop and listen to what Smith has to say. It is not the good QC who is skating on thin ice.

SYLVAN MARSHAL

Nassau,

March 8, 2018