The government will meet with the heads of law enforcement agencies today to determine how its immigration policy will be executed in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, in the coming weeks, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell said yesterday.

"You will know that there was a staging meeting that took place with all government agencies present in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, on Friday... as a precursor to the execution of special measures to be executed in Abaco to combat illegal migration in the coming weeks. The meeting was successful. The agencies of the government are in the process of mapping out a schematic, which will provide a set of options and choices from which the political directorate can decide.

"There will be a meeting with the heads of law enforcement agencies in The Bahamas to discuss the way forward, including timing and logistics tomorrow Tuesday, the 24th of February. "We wish to conduct this in an open and transparent way, so that there can be no misunderstanding of what we intend and how we intend to execute our immigration policies."

The policy, as outlined by the government, requires all non-Bahamians to have passports of their nationalities and evidence that they have permission to live and work in the country. Since the government implemented its immigration policy on November 1, 2014, the Department of Immigration has carried out mass exercises in New Providence. Hundreds of immigrants have been detained during spot checks.

Abaco is home to several large shantytowns, including The Mudd, Pigeon Pea and Sandy Banks, where the majority of dwellers are of Haitian descent. A government report on shantytowns, released last year, found that there are also shantytowns on Andros, Eleuthera and Exuma.

Mitchell has said operations will also be carried out on Exuma and Eleuthera. He told Parliament yesterday that the policy is intended to "ensure the integrity of the workforce and its Bahamianess; to ensure the national security of our state, and protect its cultural integrity; to regularize those who find themselves in a legal catch-22 where appropriate and to exclude from the country those who have no right to work and live here".

The policy continues to attract criticisms from local and international advocacy groups and human rights associations. Yesterday, Mitchell asked the public to remain calm in the "face of the many provocations about our country that now seem to be piling on". He again cautioned the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association about portraying illegal migrants as poor people escaping poverty without juxtaposing the fact that reports "that these trips of illegal migrants cost from $1,500 a head to $5,000 a head". "This means that we are dealing with something which approximates a sophisticated criminal enterprise," he said. "Our new policies are disrupting that enterprise. "The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association should be careful that [it is] not unwittingly running interference for that enterprise". Mitchell acknowledged that there may be issues surrounding the immigration policies that are open to debate or may be challenged. But he denied the government is targeting any national group and said it does not sanction abuse of any kind against migrants in The Bahamas.

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