10/7/2014
Bahamas Pursuing Xenophobic Policies Against Haitians, Expert Says
SAN JUAN – New immigration rules to go into effect in the Bahamas on Nov. 1 are “clearly xenophobic” because they further marginalize the Haitian population living there, according to U.S. anthropology professor Bertin Louis.
The archipelago, which gained independence from Britain in 1973, “has historically promoted a xenophobic policy” toward foreigners and Haitians in particular, the expert of Haitian descent told Efe on Friday in an interview.
Under the new immigration laws, the Bahamian government will no longer accept applications for work visas by persons residing in the country illegally.
“We will not accept applications for people who do not have legal status in the Bahamas to work and anyone who comes to do so ... will be arrested, charged and deported,” Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Frederick Mitchell said in mid-September.
The official also announced then that all persons living in the Bahamas will be required to have a valid passport of their home country.
Children of immigrants, once their legal status has been established, will be granted a permit that allows them to live, attend school and work on the islands, whose population is around 370,000.
Some 50,000 Haitians were living in Nassau, Bahamas’ capital, in 2013, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Although precise official data is lacking, the vast majority of immigrants in the Bahamas (around 16.3 percent of the population) are known to be Haitian, a population whose homeland is the poorest country in the Americas.
Louis, interim vice chair of the University of Tennessee’s Africana Studies program, says these regulations are in keeping with “what’s been happening since the early 20th century.”
He recalled that in 1957 a large stream of Haitian migrants arrived in the islands just after Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier was elected as Haiti’s new president.
Louis believes that influx is the origin of the “anti-Haitian” sentiment that currently exists in the Bahamas, where those migrants are viewed as “poor and disorganized” and suffer discrimination.
Haitians are viewed in the Bahamas as a public-safety problem and a kind of “disease,” he explained.
In 1967, Bahamas’ government began a crackdown that has centered on conducting raids, housing undocumented Haitian migrants in detention centers and subsequently deporting them.
The expert, author of “My Soul Is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas,” notes that many of the Haitians living in the Bahamas work in the service industry and says the Bahamian system “doesn’t empower (Haitian) children. They prepare them to work in the service industry as well.”
Reflecting on why Haitians do not rebel against the daily societal and institutional discrimination they suffer, Louis noted that some people are using the Bahamas as a way station and do not want problems that prevent them from reaching their intended destination: the United States.
“They don’t stand up because they don’t have much legal ground for doing so. Haitians also are not organized in a manner to orchestrate a response to mistreatment,” Louis said, ruling out any improvement in the situation in the coming years.
On Sept. 26, Mitchell pledged in a memorandum of understanding signed with the IOM that the Bahamas would “manage its migration challenges effectively and humanely.”
But Louis said he expects a “continuation of the treatment and acceptance of the treatment by Haitians.”
source
Bahamas Pursuing Xenophobic Policies Against Haitians, Expert Says
SAN JUAN – New immigration rules to go into effect in the Bahamas on Nov. 1 are “clearly xenophobic” because they further marginalize the Haitian population living there, according to U.S. anthropology professor Bertin Louis.
The archipelago, which gained independence from Britain in 1973, “has historically promoted a xenophobic policy” toward foreigners and Haitians in particular, the expert of Haitian descent told Efe on Friday in an interview.
Under the new immigration laws, the Bahamian government will no longer accept applications for work visas by persons residing in the country illegally.
“We will not accept applications for people who do not have legal status in the Bahamas to work and anyone who comes to do so ... will be arrested, charged and deported,” Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Frederick Mitchell said in mid-September.
The official also announced then that all persons living in the Bahamas will be required to have a valid passport of their home country.
Children of immigrants, once their legal status has been established, will be granted a permit that allows them to live, attend school and work on the islands, whose population is around 370,000.
Some 50,000 Haitians were living in Nassau, Bahamas’ capital, in 2013, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Although precise official data is lacking, the vast majority of immigrants in the Bahamas (around 16.3 percent of the population) are known to be Haitian, a population whose homeland is the poorest country in the Americas.
Louis, interim vice chair of the University of Tennessee’s Africana Studies program, says these regulations are in keeping with “what’s been happening since the early 20th century.”
He recalled that in 1957 a large stream of Haitian migrants arrived in the islands just after Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier was elected as Haiti’s new president.
Louis believes that influx is the origin of the “anti-Haitian” sentiment that currently exists in the Bahamas, where those migrants are viewed as “poor and disorganized” and suffer discrimination.
Haitians are viewed in the Bahamas as a public-safety problem and a kind of “disease,” he explained.
In 1967, Bahamas’ government began a crackdown that has centered on conducting raids, housing undocumented Haitian migrants in detention centers and subsequently deporting them.
The expert, author of “My Soul Is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas,” notes that many of the Haitians living in the Bahamas work in the service industry and says the Bahamian system “doesn’t empower (Haitian) children. They prepare them to work in the service industry as well.”
Reflecting on why Haitians do not rebel against the daily societal and institutional discrimination they suffer, Louis noted that some people are using the Bahamas as a way station and do not want problems that prevent them from reaching their intended destination: the United States.
“They don’t stand up because they don’t have much legal ground for doing so. Haitians also are not organized in a manner to orchestrate a response to mistreatment,” Louis said, ruling out any improvement in the situation in the coming years.
On Sept. 26, Mitchell pledged in a memorandum of understanding signed with the IOM that the Bahamas would “manage its migration challenges effectively and humanely.”
But Louis said he expects a “continuation of the treatment and acceptance of the treatment by Haitians.”
source
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