Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell has identified which of The Bahamas’ neighbors ought to play an active role in stemming the unsustainable flood of illegal migrants into The Bahamas, charging that the “narrative of the poor migrant looking for a better life is deceptive”.
Mitchell told Guardian Business that Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United States and “our CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and hemispheric allies” could all be involved in helping to deal with this situation.
The conversation arose out of remarks made by Prime Minister Perry Christie at the Seventh Summit of The Americas, calling the hemisphere to account to help The Bahamas deal with the situation.
At the summit last month, Christie said, “We will be calling upon all states adjacent to us and in the hemisphere to help to stop this smuggling and trafficking. While the human rights of migrants must and always be protected, we draw attention to the responsibility of bordering states to The Bahamas to stop this illegal migration.”
He added that dialogue is “a necessary first step, particularly through the development of regional consultative mechanisms”, and he welcomed the support of the OAS, the International Organization for Migration and other interested institutions to support such efforts.
Mitchell told Guardian Business yesterday that the countries identified could possibly be called on to assist in physically stopping the flow of illegal migrants into The Bahamas and developing policies to deter and prevent it. “They can work in sharing intelligence,” he noted.
“Each country, including ours, has an obligation to not have its territory be used for criminal behavior. I put smuggling people at the top of the list to be stopped,” the minister said.
While the prime minister will ultimately determine the policy steps to be taken in this matter, Mitchell gave Guardian Business his views as the minister charged with Cabinet responsibility for the area on what steps The Bahamas could take, particularly in regional forums like the Organization of American States.
“We need stronger advocacy in all these forums. The narrative of the poor migrant looking for a better life is deceptive. We are dealing with a criminal enterprise, a money making scheme. We must interrupt the criminal network. We must change the narrative,” he said.
The need for collaboration to halt illegal migration has been highlighted this week by a fatal shipwreck in the Mediterranean, possibly the region’s deadliest migrant disaster ever and only the latest tragedy in Europe’s migration crisis.
Death at sea, rare in the immigration trials of The Bahamas, has become a grimly common occurrence in the Mediterranean. In fact, humanitarian groups estimated that 900 migrants had already died this year, compared with 90 during the same period a year ago. That figure could rise sharply, as officials estimate that 700 people may have drowned in the weekend disaster.
However, a celebrated Italian program - Mare Nostrum - was halted in favor of the European-led Triton. Italy decided that it alone could not shoulder the burden for the region. And António Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, called Sunday for Europe to expand its rescue and patrol program as well as the legal avenues for migration to Europe so that people would not have to risk their lives at sea.
“It also points to the need for a comprehensive European approach to address the root causes that drive so many people to this tragic end,” Guterres said in a statement. “I hope the EU will rise to the occasion, fully assuming a decisive role to prevent future such tragedies.”
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