Thursday, March 4, 2010

Home National Sports Business Lifestyles Religion Arts & Culture Pulse Spice Editorial letters Opinion Foodie Sportscope Real Talks Weekend Report PDF's Classifieds Contact About Us Archive Weather

Letters | Opinion | Editorial | Weekend Report
Immigration policy must remain tough The Haiti earthquake has led to millions, and soon to be billions, of dollars being sent to Hispaniola to help ease the suffering of its people. Bahamians have been generous. At last week's telethon, $250,000 was raised for Haiti relief. Banks, large and small companies and people from across the country have given much more. When the numbers are totaled, Bahamians would have given millions to Haiti. Our policymakers, however, must not misinterpret this kind response. Bahamian immigration policy towards Haitians actually needs to get tougher - not slacker - as a result of the devastation on that island. We already have a significant number of poor, uneducated and jobless Bahamians. It is the government's responsibility to create policies that help these people emerge from this circumstance. Importing more desperate people will overcrowd Bahamian inner cities with frustrated people. We cannot, and should not, seek to help Haiti by inviting its suffering masses. The Bahamas should help Haiti in Haiti. No developing country can emerge from its dysfunction if it allows tens of thousands of poor and uneducated people from other countries to settle within its borders. Once it is responsible to do so, The Bahamas should resume repatriations to Haiti with an increased aggressiveness to send the message that this country is not a sanctuary. Once apprehensions are done, illegal shantytowns should be pushed down. The Bahamas needs to then ensure, when possible, that boat captains who traffic poor Haitians are prosecuted. We have a failing education system. We have a struggling criminal justice system. Our governments have difficulty keeping the water flowing and the streetlights working. The Bahamas does not have the resources, or capacity, to help the poor masses of this region by shifting to a slack open borders immigration policy. We need to liberalize our immigration policy when it comes to skilled workers - wherever them may come from. Computer engineers, doctors, scientists and specialist teachers are some of the people we need to lure to these islands. We also need to ensure that it is easy for the children of winter residents who grew up in The Bahamas to stay, work and invest some of their parent's money in the country. Haitians occupy too much of our thinking on the issue of immigration. The hard-line policy we advocate should be the permanent position towards Haiti's poor migrants. The Bahamas should then focus on using immigration policy to enhance the national skills bank. Haiti has a population of 9 million. It is probably safe to say that more than half of them want to leave that failed state. We can only do so much to help. The big countries will have to rebuild Haiti. In doing so Haiti will likely be unofficially re-colonized and administered by those states. The Bahamas should rigorously support all development efforts on mainland Haiti. However, it should not allow these islands to become a refugee camp. Wednesday February 3, 2010