Illegal Immigrant Sympathisers and Bahamas Immigration Law

 Politicole: Illegal Immigrant Sympathisers Who Attack Bahamas Immigration Law

By NICOLE BURROWS:
Nassau, The Bahamas:


IT comes as no surprise that the people with the loudest voices, with the most brazen of accusations about The Bahamas’ approach to the management of illegal immigrants and our level of “inhumanity” and “unChristianness” in the country are, in fact, not Bahamian, and/or are not living/have not lived in or near to the end results of illegal immigration in a small country of islands like ours.

Rarely are these big-mouthed voices the voices of Bahamians, particularly the kind of Bahamians who are still struggling in The Bahamas to make decent lives for themselves, so that they don’t also feel the need to illegally inundate someone else’s country.

Illegal immigration sympathisers hit below the belt with insults about our lack of compassion, or lack of Christianity, and it is bewildering.

What is “unChristian” about enforcing our laws – finally? Christians shouldn’t obey laws or follow regulations? What kind of Christianity is that? Even Christianity has its own laws and I don’t think they condone the besieging of a country whose people have welcomed you or at least been tolerant of your needs since you first sought refuge inside its borders.

What is Christian about Haitians threatening Bahamians (on any level), illegally populating their country in droves, and then telling them it’s not enough? How can it be that anyone could expect this to be done to Bahamians and they not feel some type of way about it?

Moreover, how is the welfare of illegal immigrants and their offspring a more humanitarian cause than the welfare of legal citizens of a country and their offspring? Shouldn’t a country get to decide priority for itself? Who is protecting the interest of the legal Bahamian living legally in the Bahamas?

Are we as a country, as a world, so accustomed to being slack and passive that to do what is obedient, to follow the laws of a land actually seems unfair? When did right become wrong?

What if me and 49,999 of my fellow Bahamians, natural-born or naturalised, rolled up into any country in the world, undocumented, and said “let us in”, demanded a right to stay, and to receive medical care, food, education, jobs, economic opportunity, immunity from deportation, all because, you know, immigration is normal and that country should just accept it?

Should we not expect the people born of or patriotic to that country we just illegally bombarded to retaliate?

When you threaten someone’s livelihood and existence, when they’ve fought and worked so hard for the little they have, and easy access is given to others who come through the back door, you should expect to meet the greatest amount of resistance. I know I would expect it; but, then again, I am law-abiding.

And maybe that’s the missing link in the sympathisers’ argument – respect for the rule of law. After all, if you sympathise with what is illegal, it does beg the question of what else you might condone or be involved in that is illegal.

The challenge the Bahamas faces now with illegal immigration is the same one America is facing. I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but it’s hard to miss that members of the GOP, in the persons of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, are vehemently opposed to Barack Obama’s soft stance on illegal immigrants, as many Bahamians have been for a long time with respect to their own leaders.

All over the internet, in online news and their respective message boards, are countless comments of the American public expressing the same sentiments that a majority of Bahamians do about illegal immigration to our country. “Why do we (America) have to have our borders spreadeagle for all to enter?” “Why is our leader not paying attention to the will of the people?”

If the will of the people is to be ignored, why even have borders and border enforcement? Why have laws? Why have government? Why have national sovereignty, if people from other countries should just flow freely in and out as they like, for whatever reason they feel is important?

What if every country opened its borders to citizens from every other country? You could choose wherever in the world you wanted to live at any given time, for any length of time, never need a passport, and just - bam - go there.

What a world that would be. I wonder if the sympathisers would like that.

And once there, the incoming immigrants could just set up house on any tract of land, including land already owned by others ... maybe even land owned by the sympathisers. Then what?

And what if the immigrants refused to speak to you in your language and used any means necessary to gain ownership of what you’ve worked for? Then what?

Is that what we’re aiming for? If so, what are we waiting on? Just open all borders now, one time, everywhere, and let us have a free-for-all.

No? Because it might be too disorderly?

Well maybe now you’re starting to get the point.

The difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration is that the former is done in an orderly fashion to prevent the chaos that occurs if done in the disorderly, illegal way.

When will the sympathisers get that?

No one is saying there should be no immigration; any person with half a brain can examine the foundations of the developed world and see how the work done by immigrants has helped to create world powers. Everyone has a skill that is useful somewhere, and a purpose to match it.

No one is saying a human being has no right to want to try for a better life in a place where they weren’t born. But there is usually an existing process to accomplish this. And it must be respected. Illegally entering a country, knowing you’re illegal, is blatant disrespect to that country, and it earns no compassion amongst that country’s law-abiding when illegality is your chosen route.

If my Bahamian mother entered and lived illegally in the United States, gave birth to me there, miraculously under the radar, even though I would have been a citizen at birth according to US law (as is not the law of the Bahamas), my mother would not have got a free pass; she wouldn’t have inherited the right to stay in America because I was born a US citizen.

She would have still been illegal, could have still been deported, and, as my primary caretaker, I would have had to go with her until I was old enough to survive on my own in the place where I had citizenship, a choice I would most likely make by the time I was ready for college, at or near the age of 18.

In contrast, with respect to the laws of the Bahamas and its illegal Haitian immigrants, Bahamian citizenship at birth is not an option. And Haitian citizenship/nationality at birth is not elective for Haitian children illegal in the Bahamas ... they’re Haitian children. They take their parents’ nationality. And they should take it with pride. They have a motherland. Why is this confusing?

Why are others – sympathisers and abusers of our Bahamian law – trying to superimpose a law on us that does not exist? Because it suits their own needs/benefits.

If you are illegal in the Bahamas, and you give birth to one child or 14 children in the Bahamas, you and your children are still illegal in the Bahamas. If you find yourself in a quandary at any point in time because of this fact, it’s because of your own choice to drop your babies on Bahamian soil.

You created this problem for yourself, because we have a law which has always been clear: you only have a right to apply for Bahamian citizenship (whether you reside legally or illegally) if you are born in the Bahamas to non-Bahamian parents, and only at the age of 18. That does not mean you stay here until you are 18. And the life you live if you choose to remain is a result of your own doing. You should apply for your children’s passports from your birth country, from the time they are born.

For that matter, there is no one born in the Bahamas without the right to claim any citizenship status at all, ie rendering them “stateless”; they have other citizenship status whether they want it or not. They always have, and they always will, until such time that they renounce it and, legally, take another.

In the latest (November 1) enforcement of new Bahamian immigration law, Haitians especially (some Bahamians and others, additionally) claim the required time frame is too short notice for those illegally in the Bahamas to get the documents required of them to lawfully remain in the Bahamas.

But how can any illegal immigrant fix their mouth to say the new law doesn’t provide enough time for them to get legal citizenship documents? They’ve had 40 years to do it!

And each time they pushed out another baby, they should have gone to their country’s embassy to apply for a passport for the child – that is, of course, if they intended for that child to be a citizen of their own birth country, which is most often not the case.

Regarding Bahamian citizenship rights, the law has always been (since 1973) what it is today and if you did anything counter to it, and still do, you’ve always been illegal. Either you chose not to concern yourself with the law and what it might have required of you, or you knew the law and deliberately chose to go against it. And ignorance nor belligerence are excuses for breaking the law.

With specific regard to illegal Haitian immigration to the Bahamas, and where we find ourselves today, there is much blame to throw around: from the Bahamian government’s historic timidity towards immigration law enforcement/creation, to the Bahamian employers and boat captains who open the gateway for illegal immigrants, to the Haitian government that doesn’t direct the Haitian people to stay at home and build up their country.

But, beyond this blame-throwing, there is one inescapable fact that anyone pleading on behalf of illegal Haitian immigrants cannot deny: there is one place where the problem can be entirely resolved.

If Haiti cared about the problem the Bahamas has endured for decades with nonstop illegal Haitian immigrants, Haiti would have stemmed the problem from within its own borders before it ever became a problem for the Bahamas. Haiti has enough manpower to do that. And if they did this at the root of the illegal immigrants’ departure from Haiti, the Bahamas wouldn’t have the enormous problem with illegal Haitian immigration that it does today.

Considering this reality, that the Haitian government is well-positioned to prevent its own people’s illegal migration to the Bahamas, is it any wonder, then, why Bahamians take issue with their Haitian sisters and brothers who flock here by the hundreds? It’s an awful abuse of a friendly relationship.

In the Bahamas, we have a couple of sayings which describe when a person takes advantage of another, or a situation: “You get too use”, or “you too familiar”, or “you wear out your welcome”.

In the end, no one likes a user or an abuser – especially the abused – even if they do still love them.

• Give feedback and topic suggestions at Tribune242.com, politiCole.com, Facebook.com/NicolePolitiCole, or nicole@politiCole.com.

November 11, 2014

Tribune242

Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Centre) slams The Bahamas' immigration policies ... and accuses the government of discrimination

Int’l Group Slams New Immigration Laws

By Jones Bahamas:

A U.S. based human rights group over the weekend slammed the country’s recently implemented immigration policies and accused The Bahamas government of discrimination and claimed that the recent raids on immigrants in the country were strictly aimed at those of Haitian descent.

However, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were quick to respond and shut down these comments from the Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Centre) calling them “nonsense.”

On Friday the RFK Centre issued a statement on its website regarding the controversial and closely watched immigration exercises and noted that their leaders “express alarm at the discriminatory use of new immigration policies in The Bahamas.”

On Saturday November 1 new immigration policies came into effect that seek to clamp down on all foreigners living and working in the country.

All non-nationals residing in The Bahamas must show evidence that they have permission to live or work in the country.

“According to reports from Bahamian civil society, children born in The Bahamas to migrant parents were given 30 days notice to apply for and secure a passport from the country of origin of their parents or face expulsion, despite the significant financial burdens this new policy imposes and with no consideration for an ordinary processing time of over two months to secure a passport in some cases,” the human rights watchdog said.

“While the government of The Bahamas insists that the measures are not aimed at any national group, Bahamian civil society organisations have related that officials are targeting immigration raids at neighborhoods where the population is predominantly of Haitian descent. The RFK Centre received a report of at least one government-run school that, as of Monday, started to require students to bring their identification with them in order to access the classroom.”

President of the RFK Centre Kerry Kennedy said statehood is a fundamental human right, but added these reports “indicate that the Bahamian government regards it as a tool for discrimination.”

“These new policies mean that thousands of children in The Bahamas now live in fear of arbitrary arrest or deportation,” Mr. Kennedy said. “The Bahamas must immediately fulfill its obligation to protect children-no matter their status, and no matter their ethnicity.”

On November 1, 77 people, including Haitians, Filipinos, Chinese and Jamaicans, were all arrested during that sting operation.

A second operation over the weekend saw nearly 50 more immigrants arrested.

The RFK Centre said based on information it has received, many of those detained in the first operation were forced to remain in custody until the immigration office reopened the following Monday and they could prove their valid status and that many were not provided the opportunity to seek legal counsel, apply for asylum, or appeal their deportation orders.

“The reports coming out of The Bahamas indicate that the government is endangering the human rights of people in immigration detention, including the right to due process and the rights to humane treatment and health,” according to Executive Director of RFK Partners for Human Rights Santiago A. Canton.

“The government must immediately bring its immigration policies and practices in line with its binding international human rights obligations.”

These comments did not sit well with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials who shot back with a statement of their own on Saturday.

In fact, ministry officials said representatives from the RFK Centre never contacted them for comment on the matter.

“The statement by the RFK Centre over the new immigration policies is replete with errors,” the government statement read. “It is deplorable that a reputable body would repeat such nonsense.

The policy is not discriminatory either in its execution or its effects and there were no massive raids. No raids were conducted by the Department of Immigration at all.

“It is not true that those released had to await the opening of the Immigration Office on Monday. Those are just some examples of a statement that is loose with the truth and defames The Bahamas. The statement is terribly disappointing. There is a rule in Bahamian folk tradition: if you don’t know shut your mouth. If you want to know, just check. This is a completely open and transparent society, with nothing to hide.”

Foreign Affairs officials also responded to claims made in an article that appeared in the Miami Herald on Friday and noted that despite what was published; the Haitian Ambassador to The Bahamas Antonio Rodrigue has not been recalled to Haiti and he has been summoned to the Haitian Foreign Office.

“The Bahamas Minister of Foreign Affairs has spoken to the Haitian ambassador and the truth is that he traveled to Haiti for consultations with the Haitian government, not withdrawn as ambassador to The Bahamas as the Herald’s story suggested,” officials said.

“The Haitian foreign minister and the Bahamian foreign minister are to speak (today) by telephone and may meet in Tokyo next week. The Bahamian ambassador to Haiti attended a meeting with the minister of foreign affairs of Haiti on November 6 and assured him that there was no abuse or inhumane treatment of Haitian nationals in The Bahamas in connection with the enforcement of the new immigration policies.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also noted that when Haitian President Michel Martelly visited The Bahamas on July 28, the prime minister of The Bahamas advised the president of the steps that The Bahamas government would take with regard to immigration matters.

The matters, they said, were similarly discussed between the two foreign ministers of The Bahamas and Haiti at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

November 10, 2014

Jones Bahamas

Resolving Bolivia's claim to the Pacific

By David Roberts



Bolivia's demand that Chile provide it with sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean – a case the International Court of Justice in The Hague is soon to consider – offers the opportunity for the two countries to resolve their over 130-year dispute once and for all.

Bolivia lost its access to the ocean, along with a large chunk of its territory, to Chile in the Pacific War in the 1880s. Chile's argument is that it's an open and shut case – the 1904 peace treaty decided on the definitive and current border between the two and that is internationally recognized as valid. In fact, Santiago has decided to argue that the UN court does not even have jurisdiction to hear the case at all, because recognition of the court by both countries dates back to the 1948 Bogotá Pact, and so the tribunal does not have jurisdiction to hear cases that concern matters prior to then.

Bolivia's case, however, does not depend on arguing for the need to change the 1904 treaty. Instead, it is expected to claim that Chile has on several occasions pledged to resolve Bolivia's demand, most notably during a 1975 meeting between Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his Bolivian counterpart Hugo Banzer. On that occasion the two agreed in principle to swap two pieces of territory, granting Bolivia a strip of land in the far north of Chile from the coast and along the border with Peru, which also lost a lot of land to its southern neighbor following the Pacific War. The idea never prospered, not least because of objections from Lima.

Bolivia's case is interesting, but as it doesn't actually seem to involve disputing legal documents but amounts more to what appears to be a moral argument – that Chile has some sort of obligation (a legal one?) to negotiate a solution to the issue – it is difficult to see how The Hague court can side with La Paz.

The above, however, begs the question as to whether Chile does indeed have a moral obligation to provide Bolivia with access to the sea. It is certainly easy to be sympathetic to the Bolivians. Losing the ocean drastically changed Bolivia's history, with serious detrimental effects for its economy and development. Not only did it lose access to ports, but the land ceded to Chile turned out to contain some of the largest copper deposits in the world, which have had a major beneficial impact on Chile's economy. Landlocked Bolivia, meanwhile, remains one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere.

But whatever the outcome of the court case – and it may take years before we have a decision – it is in both countries' interest to resolve the issue. It may be politically unfeasible for Chile to offer a sovereign piece of land to Bolivia, but one possibility – which has also been suggested as a potential solution in parts of the Ukraine and even the Falklands/Malvinas – would be for Bolivia to have technical sovereignty of a small plot with a port, while Chile remains the de facto administrator of the area in terms of legal jurisdiction, political control etc. Another option, which Chile has refused to consider, is to get Peru involved, as that country has made a port area available to Bolivia in the past, although without sovereignty.

As for Chile, there would be obvious advantages for the country if Bolivia were wealthier, with all the trade and investment opportunities that would represent. Ending the dispute would also open the way for Bolivia to export some of its vast reserves of natural gas to Chile, thereby helping alleviate the country's energy shortage and avoiding the need to import liquefied natural gas from as far afield as Trinidad, Qatar and Yemen, among other places, which is patently absurd given the proximity of Bolivia's reserves.

November 03, 2014

BN Americas

Climate change an "existential threat" for the Caribbean

Desmond Brown
(Text & photos)

When it comes to climate change, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines doesn’t mince words. He will tell you that it is a matter of life and death for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

For St. Vincent’s Prime Minister
Ralph Gonsalves, climate change is a
matter of life and death.

"The threat is not abstract, it is not very distant, it is immediate and it is real," Gonsalves told IPS.

"The country which I have the honor of leading is a disaster-prone country. We need to adapt, strengthen our resilience, to mitigate, we need to reduce risks to human and natural assets resulting from climate change.

"This is an issue however, which we alone cannot address. The world is a small place and we contribute very little to global warming but yet we are on the frontlines of continuing disasters," Gonsalves added.

Since 2001, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has had 14 major weather events, five of which have occurred since 2010. These five weather events have caused losses and damage amounting to more than 600 million dollars, or just about a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"Three rain-related events, and in the case of Hurricane Tomas, wind, occurred in 2010; in April 2011 there were landslides and flooding of almost biblical proportions in the northeast of our country; and in December we had on Christmas Eve, a calamitous event," Gonsalves said.

"My Christmas Eve flood was 17.5 percent of GDP and I don’t have the base out of which I can climb easily. More than 10,000 people were directly affected, that is to say more than one tenth of our population.

"In the first half of 2010 and the first half of this year we had drought. Tomas caused loss and damage amounting to 150 million dollars; the April floods of 2011 caused damage and loss amounting to 100 million dollars; and the Christmas Eve weather event caused loss and damage amounting to just over 330 million. If you add those up you get 580 million, you throw in 20 million for the drought and you see a number 600 million dollars and climbing," Gonsalves said.

Over the past several years, and in particular since the 2009 summit of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, the United States and other large countries have made a commitment to help small island states deal with the adverse impacts of climate change, and pledged millions of dollars to support adaptation and disaster risk-reduction efforts.

On a recent visit to several Pacific islands, Secretary of State John Kerry reiterated the importance of deepening partnerships with small island nations and others to meet the immediate threats and long-term development challenges posed by climate change.

But Gonsalves noted that despite the generosity of the United States, there is a scarcity of funds for mitigation and adaptation promised by the global community.

Opposition legislator Arnhim Eustace is concerned that people still "do not attach a lot of importance" to climate change.

"When a fellow is struggling because he has no job and can’t get his children to school, don’t try to tell him about climate change, he is not interested in that. His interest is where is my next meal coming from, where my child’s next meal is coming from, and that is why you have to be so careful with how you deal with your fiscal operations," he stated.

Eustace, who is the leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, said people must first be made able to meet their basic needs to that they can open their minds to serious issues like climate change. (Excerpts from IPS)

October 30, 2014

granma.cu

Immigration Policy debate in The Bahamas

Immigration Debate in The Bahamas

Crafting a Firm and Fair Immigration Policy

Former US President Ronald Regan once said that “A nation that cannot its borders is not a nation”. For years, successive governments in this country have failed to adequately control our borders and have failed to effectively address the long standing socio-economic problems stemming from the movement of illegal migrants across our borders. The absence of firm and fair immigration policy has given rise to resentment, anger, hatred, frustration and fear that has, particularly in recent weeks, spilled over in the public domain.

On November 1, this Christie led administration took the first of what will undoubtedly be a series of difficult steps to securing sustainability for future generations of Bahamians.

As a former Minister of Immigration, I understand all too well the challenges associated with this process. Regardless of those challenges however, THE LAWS OF THE BAHAMAS MUST BE CARRIED OUT!

While the Democratic National Alliance commends the government for finally taking seriously its responsibility to protect our borders, this issue cannot – as has been the case with other matters – be allowed to become overly politicized or emotionalized. Instead, a sound and humane approach which does not destroy the dignities of our fellow brothers and sisters –particularly children – should be taken to facilitate immigration reform in this country.

As Bahamians, we can no longer abdicate responsibility for the role successive administrations have played in allowing this matter to grow and intensify. We must not pretend that systemic corruption within the Department of Immigration which has manifested in the sale of passports and travel documents, the bribery of immigration officers, the over-charging of applicants and the general exploitation of the current system, has not also contributed to the critical situation which now exists.

It must be noted that while Haitian migrants continue to make up a large segment of the country’s illegal immigrant population, Haitians should not be the sole target of such efforts. With that in mind the DNA calls for balance on the part of officials as they work to weed out persons of ALL nationalities living and working in The Bahamas illegally. As these efforts continue, the DNA calls for calm from Bahamian citizens and legal residents as immigration officials work to carry out their duties as mandated by law. We should all refrain from making derogatory and/or negative comments about any group of people on social media or any other forum but must work along with the government to ensure the success of these new initiatives.

As part of its push this government must also focus on a bi-partisan approach to formulating a clear and concise immigration policy. A policy which targets not only illegals but those who harbor, aid and abet them as well. As an addition to the current policy changes, the DNA recommends that the government go a step further by enacting legislation which would bring about the swift prosecution to those Bahamians found harboring those here illegally. The law must also hold repercussions for legal residents who also harbor illegals including the possible revocation of their legal status.

During a press conference to be held on Thursday November 6, 2014, The DNA will present its full position on the current immigration policies and future changes to the law as well.

Certainly the failures of former governments are now wreaking havoc on our modern day Bahamas. The many issues resulting from illegal immigration did not occur overnight and will not be solved overnight. It will take a sustained effort on the part of all the relevant authorities and Bahamians across the country. Decisive and Balanced Action must be taken as we work to protect our country for generations of Bahamians to come.

November 03, 2014

Branville McCartney
DNA Leader

The 2010 Bahamas Census records a dramatic increase of the immigrant population in The Islands

Migration report: Immigrants represent 18 percent of population

By TRAVIS CARTWRIGHT-CARROLL
Guardian Staff Reporter
travis@nasguard.com
Nassau, The Bahamas

The total immigrant population in The Bahamas stood at 64,793, representing 18.4 percent of the population up to 2010, according to the Migration Report which was released this month.

The report relies on data contained in the latest census.

“The 2010 Census recorded a total immigrant population of 64,793 persons, of which 29,157 were recent immigrants who migrated to The Bahamas during the intercensal period 2000 to 2010,” the report said.

Of that group, 51,170 people (79 percent) were not born in The Bahamas.

And of the foreign born migrants, 47 percent (24,049) were born in Haiti, 16 percent in the United States, 13 percent in Jamaica and three percent each in Canada and the United Kingdom, the report notes.

Collectively, those countries accounted for 82 percent of the immigrant population.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) previously estimated that there are between 20,000 and 50,000 Haitians living in The Bahamas. Although the IOM notes the challenges in presenting accurate figures of the number of Haitians who have migrated to The Bahamas as it is difficult to determine those who are “flow through” residents and those who intend to remain in the country.

Multiple officials, including those from the IOM, have identified the country’s close proximity to the United States as a key factor contributing to irregular migration. Migrants often use the country as a transit point.

According to the Migration Report, as it relates to population distribution, of the total immigrant population, 70 percent resided on the island of New Providence, 16 percent on Grand Bahama, seven percent on Abaco; Eleuthera and Exuma shared equal distributions of two percent of the immigrants. The other Family islands accounted for four percent.

As it relates to employment, 55 percent of the immigrants age 15 and over were employed with slightly more than three quarters were employed in the private sector. An additional 12 percent were government employees while 10 percent operated their own business.

“Of the total immigrants 15 years and over, 45 percent of them had completed high school and 31.8 percent had completed college or university, while four percent had no schooling,” the report said.

The 2010 Census recorded a total of 29,157, persons who migrated to The Bahamas during the period 2000 to 2010. Of this number 52.7 percent were females and 43.3 percent were males for a sex ratio of 89.9 males per 100 females, the report said.

Recent immigrants have an average household size of 3.1 persons. Additionally 46.2 percent of the households occupied by these immigrants were one-person households.

The report said 62.5 percent of the immigrants were paying rent, 15.1 percent owned their homes fully, 10.6 percent were paying a mortgage, 10.1 percent were living rent-free and one percent was leasing their homes.

October 31, 2014

thenassauguardian

The Immigration Plight of the Haitians in The Bahamas Versus the Mexicans in America

Politicole: The Real Problem That Bahamians Have With Illegal Haitian Immigrants

By NICOLE BURROWS:


THE story of the Bahamian national of Haitian parentage who lost his illegal home in a legal demolition has made its way across every form of local media, perhaps most of all social media, where people have dialogued on the verge of meltdown.

As the Anson Aly threat grew more newsworthy in the Bahamas, in Canada a Canadian national shot and killed a Canadian soldier on duty and then stormed into the Canadian parliament to see who else he could take out; he was subsequently identified as a “terrorist” by the Canadian prime minister.

The terrorist’s motive was said to have been vengeance, having been a suspected militant and repeatedly denied a passport for travel to the Middle East. According to his mother, “he was mad and felt trapped so the only way out was death.”

Some Bahamians have called Aly a terrorist, which, per definition, is someone who threatens people with the intention of intimidating a society or government. Using this definition, the only real difference between the Canadian terrorist and the angry Haitian Bahamian is the fact that the latter wasn’t carrying a weapon when he made his threat.

Many Bahamians are concerned that if we take for a joke now threats of this nature, which approximate the definition of terrorist activity, who will be able to take such threats seriously or be themselves taken seriously later on? And where and when do you draw the line?

We’ve habitually allowed the little things that ail our nation to fall through the cracks, and we continue to do it, so we continue to suffer many a social ill.

On this issue, people are saying forgiveness is key. And, yes, I agree you can and should forgive. But forgiveness doesn’t exempt a wrongdoer from punishment. How many people in Fox Hill Prison are forgiven, yet they remain incarcerated?

In any other sensible, progressive country, our man Aly would have been made to incur some consequence greater than an apology for his threatening verbiage.

Only in this jokey little country can we not recognise a problem while it’s brewing. Maybe if we throw some political colours in the mix some people who need to jump would jump faster.

Many – including immigration minister Mitchell – are saying that Aly is just one person, and we should not allow one person to cause us alarm. But, to draw an analogy in the context of this subject, there was one person at the start of our problem with illegal immigrants, too. Look how that turned out.

I think the general idea amongst a large number of Bahamians is that it may be one person now, but who’s to say that the next “one person” won’t push the envelope further the next time, now that it is already clear how far threats can go unpunished and how silly we are in managing national security issues with no real demonstration of authority?

Our reality, whether you believe it, is that the one man, the one person, is representing countless others with the same mindset. And if you put Aly, or any other woman or man like him, in that situation again, or another situation like it, you’ll see where their allegiance really lies.

There is a very large group of compassionate people – of which I confess I am one – who understand the plight of immigrants to seek a better economic life in a country they think is prosperous. Hell, if the Bahamas is overrun by poor illegal immigrants or rich legal immigrants, many of us might find ourselves on a voyage to some other country we also believe to be prosperous, where we can seek a better quality of life all around.

But since Aly threatened his fellow Bahamians in a heated moment, there’s been a lot of dialogue about how unloving Bahamians are towards Haitians or people of Haitian descent. I won’t say that some Bahamians aren’t downright cruel, using “Haitian” as a derogatory word to describe someone unattractive, dark-skinned, broad-nosed, poor, colourfully dressed, with a high body odour. These are all hateful, hurtful things that would cause anyone to feel unhuman or marginalised. But this is not the real issue at hand.

The issue in this Aly incident is the specific underlying, ongoing problem Bahamians have with illegal Haitian immigrants and the inability or the refusal of our government and the Haitian government to stem the illegal influx of Haitian migrants to the Bahamas once and for all.

Minister Mitchell has been keen to point out that there is “not one international group” causing us problems with illegal immigration, but the fact of the matter is we all know where the biggest problem lies with respect to illegal immigration in the Bahamas – we can see it everywhere we turn. Yet the discussion somehow has centred on the statement that not only Haitians are a problem for us, but so are many other illegal populations.

Some have even likened the immigration plight of the Haitians in the Bahamas to the Mexicans in America. They ask why Bahamians are prejudiced against Haitians when we have other illegals to contend with. That we do. But there are a few significant differences between them, and I believe these differences are at the core of the anger and frustration that Bahamians have towards illegal Haitian migrants to the Bahamas.

Having lived in the Bahamas and America, and being exposed to both groups and their respective ways of life, I find that the problem many Bahamians have with illegal Haitian immigrants is a deep-seated frustration that goes far beyond their desire for a better life; no one wants to deny them that in principle. But illegal immigration of Haitians to the Bahamas is really a multi-pronged problem, and it is very similar in composition to the concerns US citizens have about illegal Mexican immigrants. And they are all legitimate concerns.

In my estimation, it comes down to three things, best explained by drawing comparisons to other large migrating populations, particularly of Chinese and Indian origin, as they are two of the largest in the world.

Within the Haitian and Mexican populations, there is often:

1) Violent aggression as a trademark of conflict management;

2) Low levels of education/ intellectual achievement prior to migration; and

3) Prolific reproductive lifestyles.

Firstly, by and large, as compared to the Haitian and Mexican immigrant populations, Chinese and Indian immigrants tend to have a higher degree of education before they migrate. Many have credentials for marketable skills beyond that of agricultural farmhands, and whereas the latter are necessary, the former present a diversity that is needed to build a country. Moreover, the (Indo) Asian immigrants have a better attitude about building a nation, which shows in the quality of their contribution to their host country.

They don’t continue to profess that their country of birth is better, or best, yet remain in the country they migrated to, taking everything they can, investing in nothing and repatriating their income or sharing it primarily within their own communities.

Secondly, Chinese and Indian immigrants tend not to breed by the half-dozen; not so for Haitian and Mexican immigrants. And this strikes a delicate and particular chord for me and many of my compatriots, because, in our younger years, we held off on reproducing to be responsible and to ensure that we were financially equipped to care for our children in the best way possible when we did have them, while the illegal Haitian immigrants multiplied and are still now procreating left and right with no care whatsoever for the burden it places on the Bahamian society.

Haitians and Mexicans are largely comprised of people who follow the Catholic religion, and they don’t readily subscribe to birth control. But when has “more mouths to feed” ever helped anybody’s economic situation or lifted them out of poverty? Clearly, there is something here that the Catholic church has failed to teach its followers: if you’re already in poverty, and you have little to no education to improve your opportunities, it tends to lead to greater poverty when you multiply inordinately.

Observing the growing numbers of illegal Haitian immigrants and their offspring in the Bahamas, it has become more than obvious that extreme/excessive reproduction is their way of life, and it is more likely to occur amongst the poorer Haitian and Mexican immigrant populations than the poor Chinese or Indian immigrants.

Finally, and without mincing words, Haitian and Mexican immigrants have a known culture of violent aggression, as demonstrated by the types of crimes they commit and the ways in which they commit them.

Chinese and Indian immigrants can be very pushy, maybe because they compete to survive in their very large populations, but their first idea to resolve a dispute isn’t to pop off 10 rounds on someone, beat them to a pulp, hack them to pieces, or tie them with a Colombian necktie. There’s a degree of responsibility in Chinese and Indian culture that makes them point their aggression at themselves.

I’m reminded of my Haitian neighbour who, only a few months ago, killed a baby bird on her porch with her slipper, when the little bird had only lost its way from its nest. The woman didn’t kill it because she was hungry and needed to eat it; she killed it just because it was there. And then threw it into the street.

It’s a simple, solitary incident, but it is still violent aggression for no reason whatsoever. All these isolated occurrences taken together reveal a strong tendency toward violence that lends itself to a colossal crime problem. And we have the numbers to prove it.

The reality is that extremely populated countries of the world have people who migrate to other nations in search of better lives for themselves and their children.

The countries they tend to migrate to are usually larger, developed countries, which have open job markets, the need for unskilled labourers, wide expanses of land to accommodate increases in population, and education and healthcare systems that are properly constructed and fairly well-operated and funded.

But what, of these things, do we have in our little Bahamas?

Is it not in the Bahamian interest to defend what little we do have, and insist that it be developed in a sustainable way?

To top it all off, when there is already a sizeable portion of the native Bahamian population that exhibits violent aggression, low education and high reproductivity, adding illegal immigrants of similar profiles only makes matters worse, because the Bahamian disadvantaged become even more marginalised in their own country.

But rather than impose a penalty on and make an example of the offender who threatens the little Bahamians have now, the authorities prefer to admonish the law-abiding. Their answer is for the people who are “up in arms” to “shoosh”. Be quiet. Stop talking about it. Don’t get upset. Move on.

Well, no. Because the path to being or becoming “ignorant” is to “ignore”, and to make no statement or movement with respect to the problem at hand.

And, if we don’t mind believing the genius Einstein, whose many theories about our world ring true to this day, “nothing happens until something moves.”

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October 27, 2014