By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

dmaycock@tribunemedia.net

BRUNO Rufa - a Canadian who has adopted Freeport as his retirement home - says he is “angry and shocked” at how he is being treated by Bahamas immigration officials.

Mr Rufa has been visiting the Bahamas for the past decade and owns a condominium unit at the Coral Beach Hotel, where he resides during the winter.

Over the past year, Mr Rufa has been the subject of arrests by immigration officers and threats of deportation. Just a week ago, he was told by the assistant director of immigration that his permission to be in the Bahamas was cancelled, and that he had seven days to wind up his affairs. He was to leave the country by December 30.

On December 23, Mr Rufa made an application for leave in the Supreme Court to apply for judicial review to challenge the decisions, as well as the refusal by immigration officers to grant him his annual homeowner’s resident card issued under the International Persons and Landholding Act.

The application hearing was held on Tuesday before Justice Petra Hanna Weekes in the Supreme Court in Grand Bahama.

In his affidavit submitted in support of his application, Mr Rufa has claimed that he is being denied his rights and respect as a human being.

“I am absolutely aghast, angry and shocked that I am being treated this way when I have done nothing wrong. What if every foreign homeowner was treated this way?”

Mr Rufa currently serves as the president and director of Coral Beach Management Company. However, following complaints in January this year, he was arrested by immigration officials and charged in the Magistrate’s Court with engaging in gainful occupation without a work permit, and released on $2,500 bail. The matter is still pending.

Mr Rufa claims that he is innocent.

“It is true that I have been charged with an offence of allegedly working without a work permit. It is a charge I deny, trumped up by my detractors,” he claims in the affidavit.

“This has been a source of constant embarrassment, anxiety, damage and stress. I want nothing more than to reside in Freeport, in peace, as I have done for years, and which I am entitled to do as a homeowner if I do not breach the laws of the Bahamas.

“I have invested in Freeport. I have helped to transform Coral Beach from near-bankrupt status to a most desirable residential community.”

Mr Rufa further notes that since February 2015 when he commenced his first judicial review in the Supreme Court seeking to challenge the decision by the Department of Immigration that he was deemed an undesirable and was to be deported out of the country, he has been refused entry. Mr Rufa claims he has had to seek periodic approvals from the Department of Immigration to land and remain in the Bahamas for short periods of time.

“This has been tremendously inconvenient and disruptive to my personal life and likewise to my responsibilities and duties as the president and director of Coral Beach Management Company Limited.

“At times, without prior notice, and in breach of the provisions of the Immigration Act, I have had visits directly to my home from immigration officers seeking to inspect my passport. All of the foregoing has caused me tremendous anxiety and damage,” he says.

Mr Rufa further notes that on September 29, his attorney at Callenders and Co wrote to the Immigration Department on his behalf requesting leave for him to land in the Bahamas and remain until April 16, 2016 to allow him to deal with hearings in various court proceedings, to carry out his duties as president of CMBC, and in line with his and his partner’s usual habit of spending the winter at their Freeport home.

On his arrival in Freeport on November 23, Mr Rufa says an immigration officer stamped his passport granting him a stay of 150 days (until April 20, 2016).

According to Mr Rufa, he was visited at his home by immigration officers on December 21 who inspected his passport and landing card and noticed that he was granted stay until April 16, and they left.

On December 23, the same date that his attorneys filed for judicial review, two immigration officers dressed in civilian clothing came to his home and advised him that the assistant director of immigration wanted him to come to the Department of Immigration, he claimed.

Mr Rufa, along with his attorney Carey Leonard, went to the Department of Immigration.

He said he was told his stay was cancelled and he had one week “to wind up my affairs and leave.”

Mr Rufa said the assistant director then marked cancelled on his previously granted stay stamp in his passport.

In the application for leave to commence a judicial review, Mr Rufa believes that “the decisions taken against him are irrational and/or procedurally unfair.”

In the first judicial review proceedings brought by Mr Rufa, Justice Hanna Weekes in her judgment on October 29 found that the Canadian was unlawfully arrested and deported in February 2015.

On December 17, Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell disagreed with the judge’s ruling and called it a “challenge to the authority of immigration.” He insisted that the Department of Immigration has an “unfettered right to determine who is landed and is excluded from The Bahamas, subject to law.”