People’s politician Loftus Roker, has accused Abaco residents of fuelling the immigration problem on the island, by allowing migrant workers to stay after their work permits expire.
The former Progressive Liberal Party Minister of Immigration, said that farms were the main culprits for hiring immigrant labourers.
“I sympathise in a half-hearted way with the people of Abaco because they thought they were getting cheap farm labour and now they have their Mudd and Pigeon Pea,” Mr Roker said.
He insisted that Haitian labourers brought into Abaco, were being treated like “slaves” and warned that if this practice continued, migrants would overrun Abaco.
“History will also tell you-like the people in Abaco are now learning-that you cannot keep people as slaves forever [because] eventually those slaves will be your masters,” he said.
Earlier this month, leader of Abaco’s Urban Renewal Programme Jewel Major, said Abaconian residents were to blame for creating the illegal immigration problem on the island.
At a forum entitled, “Bahamian-Haitian Crisis: Where are we now?,” she pointed out that much of the immigration difficulties facing Abaconians were a result of farms shutting down and their Haitian workers being left to squat on nearby land.
“One of the farms brought the Haitians to work,” she said. “When the season was over, instead of sending them back because their work permit [was] up, they just turned the water supply off.
“This meant [they were] forced from living where their houses were on the farms. So they went into the cities ﾖ like Marsh Harbour ﾖ to live,” she explained. “I think that’s what’s happening, we are reaping what we’ve sown.”
Ms Major added that Abaconians were helping to further facilitate the problem, by knowingly hiring illegal Haitian immigrants living in the sprawling shantytowns, of The Mudd and Pigeon Peas. She said that some businessmen have even admitted to committing the crime.
“I have spoken personally with these employers and they admit they know that a lot of [Haitians] that they have hired are illegal,” she said. “The Marsh Harbor people have to take responsibility for why this is happening.”
The large concentration of immigrants has caused the island many problems in the past few months. Most recently, in early September, it was reported that The Mudd and Pigeon Peas settlements were on the verge of exploding, after clashes occurred between illegal and legal Haitians.
But according to Mr Roker, the illegal immigration issue and the problems associated with it, could be cleaned up in a heartbeat, if the government was enforced the laws.
“The problem is not illegal immigration or legal immigration. It’s that we have forgotten what the policy ought to be,” he said. “The laws are there to deal with these matters [but] we fail to enforce the laws of the land. They are to be upheld and obeyed.”
By: JASMIN BONIMY, The Nassau Guardian
