Paul I Jukic  03/20/2008 03:14:16 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Search Results

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UNCLAS        NASSAU 00160

SIPDIS
CXNASSAU:
    ACTION: AMB
    INFO:   CGLO DCM POL OPBAT NAS

DISSEMINATION: AMB /1
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: DCM:HARDTDB
DRAFTED: POL:PIJUKIC
CLEARED: POL:DBOCONNOR

VZCZCBHI876
RR RUEHC RUCNCOM
DE RUEHBH #0160/01 0522257
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 212257Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY NASSAU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5240
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NASSAU 000160 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SMIG HA BF
SUBJECT: COAST GUARD STOPS HAITIAN MIGRANT SURGE, BUT LONG 
TERM IMMIGRATION CHALLENGES REMAIN 
 
REF: 07 NASSAU 1244 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (U) SUMMARY:  A U.S. Coast Guard cutter overtook a 
sailboat packed with 73 Haitian migrants on February 7, in 
the latest of four significant interdictions in the Windward 
Passage over a span of three weeks.  The recent surge in 
migrants saw 447 Haitians rescued at sea by the USCG cutter, 
with Bahamian "ship riders" on board, reflecting the 
effectiveness of U.S.-Bahamian cooperation in the fight 
against human smuggling at sea.  A further 128 migrants were 
intercepted by the Bahamian Defense Force.  Recent USG 
interdiction and repatriation efforts have spared the 
Bahamian government nearly $100,000 in repatriation expenses 
-- welcome relief for a government that repatriated nearly 
7,000 mostly Haitian migrants in 2007 at a cost of over a 
million dollars.  The current Bahamian government has 
continued its vigorous immigration enforcement, even as it 
has eliminated its predecessor's sharp anti-immigration 
rhetoric and controversial raids.  The country remains 
seriously conflicted about the calculation of economic 
benefit versus social costs of immigration, and illegal 
immigration remains one of the central long-term social 
challenges facing The Bahamas.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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CUTTER INTERCEPTS FOUR SLOOPS IN THREE WEEKS 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U)  The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Valiant overtook a 
30-foot, wooden-hulled Haitian sloop packed with 73 migrants 
on February 7, 25 nautical miles southeast of Acklins Island 
in the southern Bahamas.  The cutter steamed northeastward 
from Guantanamo Bay to make the interception after a Coast 
Guard aircraft spotted the single-masted vessel, with some 15 
migrants apparently on deck, in the late afternoon February 
¶6.  All migrants were safely transferred to the cutter for 
repatriation to Haiti within the next few days.  This 
operation was the cutter's fourth significant interdiction of 
human smuggling attempts in the Windward Passage in the last 
three weeks, with Bahamian "ship riders" on board  in each 
case.  The recent surge totals 447 Haitian migrants rescued 
at sea by Coast Guard ships, reflecting the outstanding 
operational cooperation between our governments in the joint 
struggle against human smuggling and illegal immigration on 
the high seas.  The Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) 
apprehended a further 128 Haitian migrants at sea south of 
New Providence January 24 in the first such interdiction this 
year; the RBDF intercepted some 1,300 migrants at sea in 2007. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
U.S. EFFORTS SAVE BAHAMAS 100K AND MANY HEADACHES 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶4.  (U)  The recent Coast Guard interdictions and USG 
repatriation efforts spare the Bahamian government direct 
costs totaling nearly $100,000, according to Bahamian 
government cost estimates.  This is a significant sum, and a 
welcome relief for a government which repatriated nearly 
7,000 illegal migrants at a cost of over a million dollars in 
¶2007.  Nearly 90 percent of repatriated migrants were 
Haitians, with Jamaicans, Dominicans, and Cubans constituting 
the next largest groups.  Other well-represented 
nationalities on the rolls of the Immigration Detention 
Center in Nassau, where immigration violators are held, 
included Brazilians, Peruvians, a smattering of other South 
and North Americans, Europeans (West and East), Chinese, 
Africans, and even a couple of Turks.  While most Cubans and 
other migrants from the region are headed to Florida, many 
Haitians either choose Bahamian destinations or end up 
landing, and eventually settling, on various islands for any 
number of traditional or prosaic reasons. 
 
¶5.  (U) Immigration officials do not hide their gratitude and 
appreciation of Coast Guard efforts which assist the 
government in its highly scrutinized efforts to combat 
illegal immigration at home.  Intercepting migrants before 
they hit the beaches of New Providence or other islands, to 
become the targets of law enforcement and repatriation 
efforts, and attendant publicity, reduces and simplifies the 
government's work in many respects.  Furthermore, 
wooden-hulled Haitian sloops are a high-priority target of 
joint U.S. and Bahamian law enforcement efforts, and are the 
focus of a U.S.-initiated Bahamian legislative reform effort 
in the context of OPBAT (see reftel).  The variety of illicit 
cargoes -- drugs and arms in addition to people -- does 
nothing to ameliorate rising crime in the streets of Nassau. 
For now, the quaint sailboats remain a common sight in Nassau 
harbor, with derelicts littering public beaches in the south 
of New Providence where immigration officers periodically 
beat the bushes to apprehend illegally-landed Haitians. 
 
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ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS CONTINUE UNABATED 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) While continuing vigorous enforcement efforts at sea 
and on land, the Free National Movement (FNM) government has 
toned down the anti-immigration rhetoric and controversial 
raids of its predecessor, which drew criticism on human and 
civil rights grounds, at home and internationally. 
Immigration, legal and illegal, remains one of the biggest 
long-term challenges facing The Bahamas.  Labor migration 
from poorer and more unstable parts of the Caribbean, Haiti 
in the first place, has already changed the linguistic and 
ethnic map of the islands.  This leads to significant social 
tensions not only in the capital, but in smaller, outlying 
island communities proportionally more affected by 
Creole-speaking new arrivals.  Shanty towns populated by 
often illegal, sometimes stateless Haitians, have spread in 
Nassau and multiplied throughout the smallest islands where 
manual labor is needed, contributing in turn to continuing 
ethnic tensions.  Immigration, legal and otherwise, is 
unlikely to decline given the demand for cheap, unskilled 
labor in The Bahamas, especially as planned, large-scale 
hotel projects come on-stream.  While big investments keep 
the economy afloat, the jobs and prosperity they bring act, 
in turn, as a magnet for the labor migration at all skill 
levels which Bahamian society has struggled for decades to 
integrate. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶7.  (U) The Bahamian public remains seriously conflicted 
about the calculation of the macro-economic benefits, even 
necessity, of labor immigration, which may be difficult for 
the ordinary person to appreciate, compared to the very 
visible social and cultural costs.  Hard-working Haitian 
laborers and gardeners are ubiquitous throughout Nassau but, 
fairly or unfairly, Haitian immigrants are also partly blamed 
for the current rise in violent crime and associated with 
illegal drugs and ethnic gangs.  All this makes immigration a 
tricky but unavoidable political challenge, as government 
officials realize.  The GCOB must chart a course for 21st 
century economic development for a small, tourism-based, 
archipelagic nation with no small sense of national pride, 
but not enough people to fill the jobs a growing economy 
provides. 
SIEGEL