By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE top United States diplomat in The Bahamas has stressed that the US will not pressure this country to admit Haitian nationals for visa purposes after concerns swirled over Nassau being named a processing point for Haitians.

US Chargé d’Affaires Kimberly Furnish’s assurance - in an interview to mark the opening of the new US Embassy in Nassau - came after the Davis administration rejected allowing Haitian nationals to come here to apply for US visas. Officials said the new American designation “will result in no additional entries to The Bahamas,” emphasising that the US, under the Trump administration, has already restricted entry to Haitians.

“The sovereign right of the Bahamas is to issue visas to who they see fit to enter their country, and the United States has no intention of pressuring The Bahamas to issue visas to any nationals of any country,” Ms Furnish said.

However, she also noted that the embassy in Nassau had long handled Haitian applications. “We’ve always interviewed Haitian applicants, whether they’re resident in Haiti or they’re visiting for the purposes of a visa application,” she said. “There are certain embassies around the world that can’t provide those services, and our Embassy in Port-au-Prince is one of those right now. It’s a challenging situation in Haiti, so we will continue to interview Haitian applicants as we always have. That is not a change. I don’t expect that that will create any surge in Haitians coming here.”

Asked why Nassau was chosen instead of other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, Ms Furnish said the embassy here was well-positioned to take on the role. “We know that there are flights coming from Haiti to the Bahamas currently,” she said. “We know there’s capacity with [our] beautiful new consular section, and we have Haitian Creole speakers in our consular section as well.”

She also clarified that the Trump administration’s restrictions do not apply to all Haitians. “With the new policy, we have seen a slight dip in Haitian nationals applying, and that’s to be expected,” she said. “Honestly, the categories of Haitians that we would see coming here would be very specific ones,” she said, mentioning diplomats or family-based immigrant visa applications. “Those are very small in number too. I’ll say we see the numbers declining.”

The State Department’s decision to shift visa processing from Port-au-Prince followed the suspension of routine consular services in Haiti, where armed gangs now dominate large areas and instability has crippled government institutions.