The Tribune

By Earyel Bowleg

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ACTING Immigration Director William Pratt said three children fended for themselves in a shanty town earlier this month when their detained mother failed to reveal their existence because she feared they would be deported to Haiti.

He said the children’s godmother later took them to immigration officials, where they were reunited with their mother.

The Tribune reported on the children after visiting the Kool Acres shanty town three days after authorities posted eviction notices and apprehended numerous people on October 2.

One of the children, Clifton Charite, 12, said his siblings were at school when their mother was taken. They did not attend school the days after because no one was there to give them money.

“It is our practice,” Mr Pratt said in an e-mail yesterday, “to interview the female detainees, and once they advise the officers that they have children, we will arrange through family members and/or friends of the detainee to connect the mother with the children. It is not our practice to remove children from the school, hence, a more private and humane arrangement is made to the benefit of the child.

“Note that in some cases, the female detainee is deliberate in not informing the officers of their children because they wish for them not to be deported to Haiti along with them if that is the decision to be made by the department.  They would prefer for them to remain in The Bahamas with a family member.”

Mr Pratt said in the case of the three children, the mother “admitted that she did not want the children to be repatriated.”

 He estimated that 69 people were apprehended when eviction notices were posted in Kool Acres and All Saints Way, including 68 Haitians and one American.

“In the Kool Acres community, we arrested 19 Haitian males, six  Haitian females, one Haitian female child and one Haitian male child,” he said. “In the Golden Isles Unregulated Community, we arrested 22 Haitian males, 12 Haitian females, three Haitian female children, and four Haitian male children, along with one male American national.”

 “These persons have already appeared before the Magistrate’s Court on the offences of overstaying and illegal landing. In some cases, subjects were given a fine or a custodial sentence at The Bahamas Department of Corrections. 

“Those that were returned to immigration custody were most likely a part of our last repatriation exercise which took place on Wednesday 11, October 2023 when we repatriated a total of 67 Haitian nationals to Port au Prince, Haiti.”

 Mr Pratt did not say whether the three siblings and their mother were repatriated.

 The Bahamas has resisted international calls to halt repatriations amid instability in Haiti, which has been overrun by gang violence.

 The government’s long-standing pledge to eradicate shanty towns has often been hindered, usually by court orders.

 However, a ruling from Chief Justice Ian Winder earlier this year paved the way for the minister of works to initiate a process under the Buildings Regulation Act.

 On the day immigration officers posted eviction notices in two shanty towns, authorities also demolished the home of Aviole Francois-Burrows in All Saints Way in accordance with a court ruling from May, sending a chilling message to residents.