By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said yesterday that meetings with two international organisations, which were planned to explain the government’s new controversial immigration restrictions, have been rescheduled for December 16 in Washington, DC.

Mr Mitchell was initially expected to meet with the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the CARICOM caucus on November 26. However, the discussions were postponed because OAS officials had to leave the United States on official business.

In the meantime, Mr Mitchell said interdiction exercises are expected to continue and will ramp up in the Family Islands. He said officials would visit Abaco this week, but he did not specify when or the settlements that would be targeted first.

The minister further addressed reports in the Jamaican Observer that OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza was “concerned” about the Bahamas’ new immigration policy that took effect on November 1.

He said: “We met with the Bahamian community and our obligation is to make sure that the Bahamian community understands. I think most of them do.

“Because a lot of people have talked about the OAS, we finally got the schedules together.

“It is agreed that I am to address the permanent council of the OAS on December 16 which is a couple Wednesdays from now and then there are meetings with the CARICOM caucus.

“The secretary general of OAS wrote me a letter explaining what his remarks were in Jamaica, saying that he had only made general remarks because he had read things in the newspaper, so he was only saying he was concerned that everyone else was concerned. He made no pronouncements on the policy otherwise.”

With the work of immigration officials continuing amid backlash, Mr Mitchell said there have been an increase in repatriation and interdiction numbers. He said the same could be said for neighbouring countries in the region.

There have been calls for tourists and businesses to boycott the Bahamas from Haitian-born Florida politician Daphne Campbell. Human rights watchdog group Amnesty International has also opposed the Christie administration’s new restrictions.

“What I do know is the repatriations are up and the interdictions are up, there is no question and that in my view is largely driven by the fact of the actuality of (people) breaching our borders at sea,” Mr Mitchell said. “If you remember in the first quarter of the year we had already doubled that of the previous year so we would have to disaggregate the actual land based interdictions.

“But certainly the sea-based interdictions are way up over last year no question about that and that is across the region,” Mr Mitchell said.