Director of Immigration Jack Thompson yesterday called on school principals to report unregularized students who register at their institutions, saying the Department of Immigration intends to "flush out" undocumented foreign nationals enrolled in the public school system. Thompson, who was speaking at a forum for public school principals yesterday morning at SuperClubs Breezes, said The Bahamas can not afford to have illegal immigrants in the public school system "absorbing our resources." "You should call me and tell me where they are living because I have to deal with them," Thompson told the principals. "We have to hit at the root. The root is the parent. I am not in the business of sending the children home and not the parents or sending the parents and not sending the children.  We have to send them together. "All of them must go and they must go as soon as possible because we can't have people illegally residing and going to school and absorbing our resources. You know how the community feels about this. The communities are outraged." He pointed out that the children who are not Bahamians should be in receipt of a permit to reside. Thompson noted that the permit to reside card is similar to a Bahamian driver's license. He said his department has to begin a dialogue with the Department of Education "so we can flush out and unclog the system because there is a lot of concern." Thompson stressed that immigration officials will not target the undocumented children but will go after their parents and deal with both simultaneously. Public school officials cannot refuse to register illegal immigrants, as according to Bahamian law, all children residing in The Bahamas have the right to an education. "This is a balancing act, because while on one hand you can not deny education, by the same token we have a responsibility to crack down and to deal with this issue," Thompson said. Children who are born to Bahamian women, whether married or single, have the automatic right to citizenship. Only in cases where a non-Bahamian woman is married to a Bahamian man is the child automatically granted citizenship. Children born in The Bahamas to single women who are not residents of The Bahamas have a right to apply for citizenship when they turn 18. Thompson said immigration officers never round up illegal immigrants at schools, hospitals or clinics and churches. "That is a no, no," he said. "While we have a job to do, we have to do things the right way." He said apprehension exercises will take place in the communities where they live. While he had no official count, Thompson said there are "a number" of children attending school without proper documentation. He said it is the department's policy to ask undocumented migrants to leave the country and apply to be regularized through the proper means. "What we are challenged with now is, should we regularize someone while they are here in the country? Should we regularize someone after they have been here for five years? "So we're often criticized when we send people back but if we start regularizing persons who are here to start with, then I'm not sure what message we are sending." Director of Education Lionel Sands, who also attended the forum, told principals that they should work along with the Department of Immigration in its efforts.

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