The Tribune

TWO young boys have not been heard from since the earthquake in Haiti last week – and they should not have been there at all.

Mayson and Nickey Pierre are about six years old, and were deported to Haiti in defiance of a Supreme Court order.

Even when an immigration officer at Lynden Pindling International Airport was given an injunction order from Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant Thompson saying they must not be deported, the pair were put on a plane and sent to Haiti. Since then, attorney Wayne Munroe has said the Bahamian government has resisted bringing them back.

This column has taken our country’s immigration officials to task on a number of occasions – but here we are talking about the possibility that these boys have been sent in defiance of our court order to a country now locked in disaster and political turmoil.

These boys have done nothing wrong. Mr Munroe says they are boys who were born in The Bahamas and have a Bahamian father.

Now, no one has heard from them since the quake. With a death toll of 1,419 and rising in Haiti from the disaster, it is hard not to fear the worst.

How is it we hear time and time again with problems with our immigration system? How is it that officers can act in defiance of a court order? If ever something gave an impression of a department doing as it likes and ignoring the law, surely ignoring a court over the deportation of two little six-year-old boys to a country they were never born in casts the department in the worst possible light.

And if we have sent them to their deaths? Well, as Mr Munroe says, “we will no doubt be seeking judgement against the Bahamas government for that”.

Over and over, our immigration system has been brought before the courts and found wanting. Whether it is people who have been locked up for years with no trial or being detained unlawfully, immigration has been called to account many times – and yet little ever seems to change.

Will anything change after the case of these boys? We can only hope – but we can also call on the government to use its resources to help find them, and to put the matter right. No more “resisting” bringing them back, do as the courts say. The law is the law.

We suspect Elsworth Johnson, the current Immigration Minister, shares our concerns about the consistent failures of the Immigration Department, exposed in the courts. But with possibly given current COVID problems nine months to go before the May election, is he going to open a conflict with one of the most powerful security departments in the country? Even though a string of cases has revealed problems - from these boys to the Chinese family whose holiday turned into a nightmare as we reported in this week’s Insight, and to the many other cases where people have been detained unlawfully, sometimes for many years, or even deported.

The reality is nothing has been done despite repeated evidence that the Immigration Department is failing in its duty to respect international standards and the law of our country. That needs to change.

Positive signs

Education Minister Jeff Lloyd is saluting a remarkable ten percent increase in the number of BGCSE students earning grades A, B and C this year. High numbers indeed – and reportedly more students also awarded grade A in the BJC examination than in previous years.

If that is so, it’s a remarkable achievement given the difficulties students have faced keeping up with their studies in the pandemic. Many parents will tell you how their children have struggled with virtual learning, and how grades have dropped along for many.

So we welcome the news – but we would like to see the full figures, not just this selected highlight. If indeed all is well, we look forward to the release of the complete statistics so a full comparison can be made to previous years, not just A to C grades but for all students.

When we see that, then we’ll celebrate - but not before.