Retired Archbishop Drexel Gomez has said that DNA leader Branville McCartney’s approach to children born to illegal immigrants in The Bahamas is ‘inhumane’.
McCartney recently announced that, if elected, he will push through an amendment to the Constitution that will prevent children born to illegal immigrants from ever applying for Bahamian citizenship. Right now, the constitution allows those children to apply for citizenship once they are 18 years old.
Gomez said, “I cannot understand anyone who is going to seek leadership in this country who is not going to deal with the situation in a humanitarian way.”
Admitting it is a complex problem, Gomez also said it needs to be handled in a humane manner.
McCartney has been accused of playing to the xenophobic fears of Haitian-hating Bahamians in a bid to get elected. He recently claimed that the FNM government is secretly granting citizenship to hundreds of immigrants to garner votes in the upcoming general election. Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette has denied the spurious allegations and said that the FNM Government is following the same process used by previous governments in naturalizing immigrants.
Archbishop Gomez said the country owes a lot to immigrants. He said that police officers and teachers from the Caribbean islands and elsewhere, helped to build The Bahamas. He may have been alluding to claims that Lynden Pindling, who is called the “father of the nation” was born to illegal immigrants who came here from Haiti via Jamaica. Pindling allegedly had all traces of his immigration erased and fabricated a Bahamian birth certificate prior to entering public life.
Gomez said creating that a policy to “shun” children born and raised in The Bahamas, who have no familiarity with any other country, is contrary to a general humanitarian spirit.
“Why can’t we treat them with dignity? Why can’t we do a policy that makes space for them and say there will be exceptions, those who are undesirable. But not to blanket the whole lot and say we have no room for you at all. That’s not a humane approach. And also it’s impractical too,” Gomez added.
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