The facts involved are simple. So should be the response to the error.
The Minister involved owes those people and the wider Bahamian community a simple apology, even though we agree that he has to use the best efforts to round-up illegals. But it must be done in accordance with the law.
In this regard, we note that it is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We make this analogical reference in order to illuminate a dilemma that now engulfs the current administration. This trouble concerns the Department of Immigration and its current “get-tough, treat them bad” Minister, the Hon. D. Shane Gibson.
Apparently convinced that undocumented migrant workers in The Bahamas should be given no quarter, he unleashed his forces. And true to form, they went to work and rounded up scores of so-called ‘illegals’.
The raids were quite literally too good to be true. The brute fact of the matter soon became clear, most of the people who were rounded up and detained had work permits, were law-abiding and were making their honest contribution to the growth and development of this Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
Interestingly enough, the problems we currently face are identical to what we have been facing for decades now. Some twelve years ago, Yale Law School looked at the issue.
We note also that its fact-finding delegation was organized by the Yale Law School Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic.
Their report concluded that the Bahamian government’s treatment of Haitians was in gross violation of internationally recognized human rights norms. The report also noted that in many instances, these people are being forcibly repatriated with minimal, if any consideration of their claims to refugee status and in spite of the danger they face upon return to Haiti.
Today the beat goes on.
We are today chagrined by some of the Minister’s first responses to the Eleuthera fiasco. Of note in this regard are words of his to the effect that “it is unfortunate what happened-but I can say that it will happen again-“
This utterance is most unbecoming.
The Minister would have been better advised to say and suggest that he would do everything in his power to see to it that the Department of Immigration could avoid such another blunder.
And since it is never too late to do the right thing, the Minister Gibson can still redeem himself. In our opinion, he can do so by seeing to it that Immigration Officers are sensitive to the fact that they are dealing with flesh and blood human beings.
Like all other human persons, Haitians and other undocumented migrants should be treated with respect. Were this to happen, Immigration and Police Officers would be prohibited from using Gestapo-like tactics such as kicking doors in, rounding people up like animals and otherwise terrorizing them.
There must be a better way.
Our unsolicited advice to the Minister is that he should at no time yield to the temptation of believing that there is some virtue in getting tough for the sake of looking tough.
Such policies always backfire.
In this regard, we reiterate a point we have previously made. It was to the effect that official paranoia about Haitian undocumented migrants stems from and is rooted in a profound ignorance about these people.
We noted that ” absolutely no one refutes the fact that The Bahamas, as we know it has been built by successive waves of immigrants, the vast majority of whom are the lineal descendants of African slaves brought in chains to the Americas.
“In more recent decades, The Bahamas has been host to a steady stream of workers from the wider Caribbean, inclusive of Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti.”
Our conclusion to the matter was that “barring some miracle, these workers will continue to arrive. If we are correct in this surmise, commonsense demands that sensible policies be put in place to deal with this ‘fact of life’. The Minister of Labor and Immigration should get real. This he can do by looking seriously at how the country can and should address certain real labor and immigration issues.
In the ultimate analysis, then, little is gained when humiliation and terror are conjoined as instruments of statecraft. There must be a better way to deal with undocumented workers in The Bahamas.
The government would be well advised to find that better way.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
