Bahamas Human Rights Association (GBHRA), new immigration policy illegal, immoral

The Grand Bahamas Human Rights Association (GBHRA) has called the government of The Bahamas (GOB) new immigration policy illegal and immoral, formulated ". . . to strike fear into the Haitian-Bahamian population." Immigration officials are going into neighborhoods in the middle of the night where large communities of Haitians live, and indiscriminately hauling them off to detention centers. Only after they have been detained do officials check to see if immigrants are illegal or not. According to GBHRA President Fred Smith such treatment is a blatant transgression of a basic tenet of law: people are innocent until proven guilty.

The GBHRA says if immigration officials would show consideration for people's civil rights and only detain those they had a valid reason to believe were in the country illegally, GBHRA would have no problem. But as it stands the GOB is practicing a form of ethnic cleansing.

Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell provokes outrage when he tries to paper over the treatment communities of Haitian immigrants receive at the hands of immigration officials by claiming, "The job has to get done to protect our borders."

The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights says the GOB maintains they are not targeting any particular nationality, but Bahamian civil society groups claim otherwise: officials specifically raid Haitian-settled neighborhoods.

Smith's censure of the GOB flawlessly argues it ". . . does not need to violate people's fundamental rights . . . to enforce its immigration policies"

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