This is beyond sad. I guess our current government is so enamored with the performance of BEC that they cannot resist creation of another bureaucratic beast, that will deliver miserable performance at stratospheric price. Of course they know that any private operator will run economic circles around their government owned operations so private enterprise need not apply.

Anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen and entitled to all rights the same as any other citizen, regardless of whether that person's parents were in the U.S. illegally or not. What Mr. Mitchell is doing is illegal under all international law, and further is immoral. He and the government know full well that these persons are entitled to Bahamian citizen ship under Bahamian law. Many of these person's parents are entitled to Bahamian citizenship under Bahamian law. They don't have the papers because the government has refused through sloth to deliver them. These people, many now three generations deep in this country cannot get the "required" passport from their "country of origin" because their "country of origin" does not recognize them as citizens. It is a magnificent Catch 22, concocted by Mitchell and his cronies to appeal to the xenophobic vote in this country. It is grotesquely illegal and immoral.

Any person born in the U.S. is automatically a U.S. citizen. There is no double standard here. Please Xenophobes, get your facts straight.

Were you born in the U.S.? hmmmmm.....

Facile perhaps Speakthetruth, but you know that those persons who were born here of immigrant parents (legal or not) cannot get a passport from their parents' country of origin. You can feel smug implying that this requirement is no big deal, but in effect it makes persons who under Bahamian law are entitled to Bahamian citizenship, into stateless outlaws, through no fault of their own. Hope you feel good supporting such a policy.

Many of "these people" are the children of immigrants who were born in this country, and who have lived and worked here all their lives. Get a grip Mad Hatter. There is no justification for the current actions of Mr. Mitchell and his thugs. These people cannot obtain passports from their "theoretical" country of origin because they have lived their entire lives thinking the Bahamas was their country of origin. There are no records of their birth in the country their parents came from. You can rail all you want about immigrants and responsibility, but to incarcerate these people is simply an outrage to any person who believes in basic justice.

Smart or not, it's called "news".

Good point Mad Hatter. Workers unite! If we play our cards right we can move rapidly to the standard of living experienced in Cuba. One meal a day of beans and rice and a window that sort of opens for air conditioning.

So you are OK with outright lies and legally defamatory statements being published in the name of "free speech"?

Is it OK to employ thugs to threaten peaceful demonstrators and call that "free speech"?

Please be serious, birdie. This is all about stifling free speech, and it can be laid directly at the door of Mr. Nygard (the very rich, white foreigner type he suggests pulls the strings), who employs Mr. Koed Smith to do his dirty work.

Can you be serious???? You compare public criticism of an elected public official in a democracy to organizing a group of street thugs, to physically threaten Bahamian citizens exercising their democratic rights to redress grievance in a permitted, peaceful public march??? Are you crazy???? This country is fast descending into lawless disorder and it starts at the top! If the government does not protect fundamental civil rights, how can we expect civil behavior from the criminal class.