The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

AT the one year mark, the most existential challenge - as it relates to national development - facing the people's government is immigration, specifically migrant labour and the right to citizenship.

The first year saw a litany of habeas corpus cases, inclusive of the landmark Jean Rony Jean-Charles case, that have impacted government policy and spurred law reform at a great cost to taxpayers in the form of legal costs.

In addition to drafted regulations for the Carmichael Road Detention Centre - a first for the facility; apprehended irregular migrants are now being charged before the courts ahead of their deportation, a sharp shift in long-standing practice despite the legal mandate.

Foreshadowed changes will ultimately impact the country's future, specifically its national identity.

"We are working towards the total revamping of the Immigration Act within the next several months," said Immigration minister Brent Symonette, "but that is obviously a more long-term project but it's being worked on at the moment.

"Some of these (amendments) have come about as a result of the Jean Rony case and other cases, and others have come about because of a desire of the FNM and my department to amend certain aspects of the Immigration law that have not been amended since 1973."

He continued: "Everyone has the right to jump up and down on what they think they want to, but the Bahamian population has a right too. And when you see fraudulent applications being put forward, and the like, that goes against good judgment.

"When you see an issue that is causing problems that politicians have failed to deal with over the last 40 years, because of political whatever we want to call it, that goes against [good judgment].

"So there is an issue -there's a fundamental issue out there, that persons have misunderstood, or it has been misrepresented (about) who is entitled to citizenship. And I think we need to deal with that upfront and central."

According to Attorney General Carl Bethel, Mr Jean-Charles' case exposed significant and far-reaching legal challenge over the verification of birth certificates, but also forced the government to reckon with a long-standing challenge that was not covered by law or the Constitution.

Mr Jean-Charles did not apply for citizenship when he was between the age of 18 and 19, and was deported at age 34 after being held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre for some three months.

So far, the government has suggested it will amend policy to offer people who've missed the constitutional deadline a shot at permanent residence only.

The government's Law Reform Commission is also working on a supplementary bill to the Immigration Act called The Unlawful Maritime Entry Bill, which would seek to strengthen the detention powers of the Department of Immigration and the right of an Immigration minister to order the deportation of "illegal aliens" without first obtaining a court order.

The Tribune sat down with Mr Symonette to discuss the progress made in his ministry on tackling long-standing issues that were central in the Minnis administration's campaign manifesto.

He believes strongly in the need for a national debate on the introduction of limits on work permits and the transference of citizenship, but stressed critical discourse should not be derailed by the emotional appeals of long-suffering applicants.

"If you were born in Miami because you lived in Abaco," he said, "and your child was born in Ft Lauderdale, second generation born outside of The Bahamas is not Bahamian, so we have it in our Constitution at the moment.

"The only difference (between second generation Bahamians and naturalised citizens) is you were born outside the country.

Mr Symonette said: "But we ask the question could we restrict, and that's what our Immigration Act will look at. I mean can two legals make a legal. I've raised that issue at our public meetings and a lot of people have a problem with that."

With a rigid work schedule that sees him visit the aging Hawkins Hill complex every day, and take home thick stacks of files over the weekend, Mr Symonette insisted the immigration backlog will never be cleared without such limits.

"The level of service here," he said, "no matter how high or hard we try, and no matter how much of a good will the people working here do, it's the pure volume. The system needs to be updated."

Mr Symonette said: "We are close to have moved from this building to the building across the street, close to 350,000 files. These are separate cases. Everybody has got a file. Some of them are bigger some of them are smaller. All nationalities. This is not permanent residency; I'm just talking about permits.

"We have to have an immigration debate... because if there are 10,000 houses in Nassau, the best we can have is 10,000 Haitian work permits. And I'm not picking on Haitians, don't get me wrong, but I have before me in any given day a request for a Haitian to clean the yard.

"…I think Bahamians have given up on the whole certain jobs, live in housekeepers Bahamians don't do, gardeners tend not to be. So we talk about developing the agricultural business and grow our chickens… the majority of the people who worked for (chicken farms) weren't nationals so do we develop industries on the back of non nationals?"

The new immigration system is slated to come online in July, and with it vital statistics and tracking. It would also provide an inkling of just how many unregularised persons are in the country.

He added: "One thing we have to have a discussion on how many we have here…We need to sensitise the people."