The Department of Immigration in Grand Bahama repatriated a total of 460 persons last year and of that number 322 persons were Haitian nationals, according to Assistant Director of Immigration James Rolle.
Mr. Rolle told The Bahama Journal on Tuesday that 53 Jamaicans, 45 Cubans, and 17 Americans were also repatriated in 2005. Nationals from Canada, Columbia, Panama, Nigeria, The Philippines and Guyana were also sent home.
He said most of those persons were able to pay their own way, and for those who could not pay, namely Haitian nationals, the government paid for their flights to New Providence, where they were subsequently deported to their country of origin.
In a recent interview with the Bahama Journal, Assistant Director of Immigration William Pratt said the government spent a total of $720,573 on repatriation exercises in 2005, compared to $521,111.40 the year before.
Mr. Rolle said the department’s figures on the number of persons repatriated indicate the department was “pretty successful in achieving its goals”.
“There is a continued proliferation of human smuggling in this region and so we need to exert more of our energies in looking at identifying new safe houses because the old ones we pretty much know [and we] are not getting much results in that area,” Mr. Rolle said.
“So we are going to try to look for new areas where persons are being housed and we also have to maintain our surveillance on the streets.”
Mr. Rolle said the department is also going to focus its efforts this year on certain businesses that are hiring illegal immigrants.
“The department realizes that there is an unacceptable amount of applications being filed for employment. We think that a lot of applications that are filed to the department are filed more to facilitate rather than to accommodate the actual needs of prospective employers,” Mr. Rolle said.
“We are going to intensify and increase our surveillance on screening applications so we can cut back on the number of applications that may not be genuine in their representation to the department.”
Mr. Rolle said Grand Bahama is a unique island, which persons use to their advantage to smuggle in immigrants. He pointed out that besides its proximity to the U.S. mainland the island has a number of waterway arteries that can allow boats to sneak in and out.
Mr. Rolle said it will take a community effort to adequately address the problem.
“The department recognizes that members of the public have been very helpful in reporting those activities. We have not been as responsive to the information that is received as we would like to, but I think there is a general appreciation being expressed by the public that we are reacting to a lot of their complaints, and we have been successful in bringing forth results,” Mr. Rolle said.
He noted the continued strain illegal immigration places on the country’s resources.
“The monetary profit that is gained from these activities cannot equate nearly to the amount of loss that we would have accrued many years from now when the economy cannot strive because of persons or investors not being confident in what is going on,” Mr. Rolle said.
“When you start to lose control of your borders or your sovereignty, then you’re going to lose control of everything else and people need to understand [that] it goes deeper than just the dollars and cents. You’re looking at your nationalism being taken away from you.”
By: Courtnee Romer, The Bahama Journal
