By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

STUDENTS who do not meet the new immigration requirements for the fall semester will have until the end of December to produce the required documents before the Immigration Department intervenes, according to Education Director Lionel Sands.

Speaking with The Tribune, Mr Sands said it is not his department’s intent to “remove any children from school”, but if the deadline passes without a reasonable excuse, the matter will be passed on to the Department of Immigration.

Mr Sands said registration for the fall semester begins on March 15 and all compulsory school aged students – between five and 16-years-old – will be required to possess either a Bahamian passport, a birth certificate indicating a mother or father as a Bahamian citizen or a permit authorising the child to reside in The Bahamas.

A press release from the Ministry of Education said along with those documents “students will continue to submit the standard registration information to the principal of the school, for the purposes of registration and entry.”

According to the release, students who do not possess the required documentation for registration will be given a provisional letter of acceptance by the school, which will remain valid until December 31, 2015. Students will have until this date to obtain and submit the required documentation and information.

Mr Sands said it has not been his “experience” for foreign parents not to abide by school rules. He said he does not suspect there will be any issues with foreigners obtaining the proper documentation.

“It is not the intent to remove the children from the school and we have not had the experience where foreigners don’t want to pay for their children. Also, if we receive a reasonable explanation from the parents that deadline can be extended. Now if they don’t comply that will then be the responsibility of the Immigration Department, it becomes their matter,” he said.

“We are responsible for the children when they are in school . . .we have to ensure that they get an education but like I said most parents have no problem doing what needs to be done for their children, so I do not foresee a problem.”

In January, Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell announced that beginning this fall, every foreign person enrolled in school, even children born in the Bahamas to non-Bahamian parents, will be required to have a student permit and a passport with a residency stamp.

In February, former Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette said the government should delay implementing its new restrictions until 2016.

Mr Symonette, minister of immigration in the last Ingraham administration, also said making it harder for children of immigrants to get an education could create a slippery slope that results in a myriad of long-term social problems for Bahamians.

He also said that he doubted the new policy is well thought out and questioned how the Department of Immigration will be able to meet the increased demand for processing.

The student restrictions are part of a wider immigration policy introduced on November 1, 2014. That policy mandates, among other things, that every person in this country have a passport of their nationality with proof to legally reside and work in the Bahamas.

Some critics have said the policy unfairly targets Haitians or persons of Haitian descent.