The Free National Movement said in a press statement yesterday that party leader Hubert Ingraham has requested a meeting with the commissioner of police in connection with the matter involving more than 100 documented Haitian immigrants from Eleuthera who were wrongfully detained at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre in New Providence.
“The Free National Movement utterly condemns the operation in Eleuthera last Friday in which some 166 aliens with legal status were snatched from their homes in the early hours of the morning, transported to Nassau, incarcerated at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre then released and abandoned in Nassau,” the FNM said in its statement.
Spanish Wells businessmen Abner Pinder and Judson Thompson had to arrange accommodations for the Haitians on Friday night and hired a fast ferry to get them back to Eleuthera on Saturday.
The Bahama Journal confirmed on Monday that police actually arrested 193 Haitians and 179 were eventually released.
Immigration Minister Shane Gibson told The Bahama Journal that the arrest of the immigrants “was not a raid” but a police operation.
But the FNM said, “it is obvious that this operation was not only a raid, but one that was ill-conceived and poorly executed.”
“This is an embarrassment to government and to the country and we can only hope that it will not do further damage to the reputation of the Bahamas abroad,” the FNM said.
“The incompetent handling of sensitive matters by the PLP Government has already given the country enough bad publicity.”
The FNM was no doubt referring to the 10-month detention of two Cuban dentists who were recently released from the Detention Centre amid growing bad publicity for the country.
The FNM statement added, “Mr. Gibson was at the dock to grandstand when the immigrants were brought to Nassau but then he claimed that he did not know if any of his immigration officers were with the police on the raid.”
The minister made that claim in an interview with The Bahama Journal on Sunday.
The FNM said, “That is totally unacceptable since Mr. Gibson obviously knew about the raid and we are informed that there were in fact two immigration officers on the mission who refused to participate further, and did not return to Nassau with the police.”
An immigration official confirmed the same to the Bahama Journal.
The FNM said it fully supports the protection of the country’s borders from those who traffic in illegal immigrants, and also fully supports the apprehension and repatriation of all undocumented aliens to their countries of origin.
“But we must remain a humane nation where the rule of law prevails and the strangers within our gates are afforded the protection of that law,” the statement added.
“It is an outrage that persons residing legally in the Bahamas – holders of work and residence permits – should be so callously treated. After all, those who enforce the law must also obey the law. This applies equally to the police as it does to the citizen.”
Minister Gibson told the Journal on Sunday that there was a concern that some of the documents could have been fraudulent and police were taking no chances.
But the FNM said immigration officers should have been in Eleuthera to determine on the spot that these persons were in possession of legal documentation.
“It was a waste of public resources to transport 166 legal residents to Nassau, but having done so the authorities should have assumed responsibility for getting them back home,” the statement added.
“Minister Gibson did not have to check after the fact to see what had been done before. Common sense should have told him that was the right thing to do.”
The FNM said another regrettable aspect of this “clumsy operation” was that it disrupted the commercial and social life of Eleuthera and was costly for those Bahamians who legally employ the permit holders.
“Because the government may have a problem with corrupt practices and forged immigration documents [it] is no reason to detain without legal reasons, persons in possession of valid immigration documents,” the statement added.
“The FNM recommends that the government should move quickly to introduce machine-readable cards which cannot be easily forged and do away with outmoded paper permits.”
The Bahama Journal
