By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said the Immigration (Amendment) Bill 2015 tabled in Parliament on Wednesday to grant resident belonger permits was not necessary to support the government’s newly implemented and controversial restrictions.

Mr Mitchell yesterday pointed to challenges people born in The Bahamas to non-national parents have experienced in conducting business with only a certificate of identity as a form of verification. 

The government has been at the centre of a wave of criticism over its immigration policies to combat illegal migration. Mr Mitchell told The Tribune that he is expected to speak at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 3 to explain the policies. 

He spoke briefly to reporters following the opening session of the 26th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The meetings, which began yesterday at the Melia Nassau Beach Resort, will end today.

Mr Mitchell said: “I don’t want to give the impression that this Bill, apart from the issue of the belongers permit which is a specialised product if you will, is to facilitate those who were born here to non-national parents. But this Bill was not necessary to support the policies which we announced.”

He went on the address concerns about certificates of identity. “There was also in one of the comments something about certificates of identity and the fact that with the certificate of identity there was no need to stop issuing them because this has caused increased complications.

“The feeling was by this particular writer, who is unnamed, that these certificates of identity were enough for people to still be able to manage their affairs in the banks and so on and so forth. But the information we have is that the certificates of identity do not  do so.

“The US embassy might very well accept it (and) what the US accepts is their business. The problem is that people were relying on these documents to give them an immigration status in The Bahamas which those documents do not.”

He told reporters that all people should receive the passport of their nationality. Mr Mitchell said there was no need to pass any act in that regard.   

The comments come as the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) said Mr Mitchell and the Christie administration should be congratulated for acknowledging the need to act in accordance with the law.

In a press statement yesterday the GBHRA’s president, Fred Smith, QC, said they were in the process of reviewing the Bill and looked forward to additional bills covering other areas of the new immigration restrictions. 

“Mr Mitchell, along with the rest of the Cabinet, is to be congratulated for acknowledging that the actions of elected officials must at all times remain within the framework of legislation passed by Parliament. The Bahamas is a democracy and cannot be governed according to arbitrary ministerial dictate, otherwise known as ‘policy’,” Mr Smith said.