The Haitian Migration to the Bahamas

by Larry Smith

“Migration is an age-old response to different opportunities either within or across international borders, to be managed by governments as an opportunity, not solved as a problem. The ideal world is one where there are few migration barriers and enforcement expenditures, because there is little unwanted migration.”
2005 World Migration Report

The United States is pressing ahead with unpopular immigration reforms while our policymakers dither in the face of mounting antagonism towards illegal Haitians in the Bahamas.

In the US, the number of illegal immigrants has more or less tripled to an estimated 10 million since the last major reform of immigration laws. The 1986 reform sought to punish employers while giving amnesty to illegals. The current proposal calls for a guest worker programme, with incentives for migrants to return home when their contract expires.

“Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics,” President George Bush said recently. “Some of the jobs being generated are jobs American citizens are not filling. Yet these jobs represent a tremendous opportunity for workers from abroad who want to work.

Americans - who are mostly the descendents of immigrants - have had a long-running and often incendiary debate over immigration, which parallels our own. And we should remember that every Bahamian is a descendent of immigrants.

Recent years have seen a popular backlash against illegal aliens in both the US and the Bahamas, with calls to drive them out and deter their entry by cutting access to medical and other public services. The official policy response in both countries has been interdiction and return – at great cost and with little result.

Of course, anti-immigrant movements are nothing new. Grassroots campaigns that blame immigrants for job losses and declining wages, as well as for crime and public health crises occur anywhere there is a large immigrant population. The Bahamas is in good company in this regard.

In Britain during the 1960s, for example, Conservative frontbencher Enoch Powell called for an end to immigration and the expulsion of foreigners already in the country to avoid apocalyptic racial conflict. This became known famously as the “Rivers of Blood” speech.

But the apocalypse never came, partly because a breakdown in social stability requires powerful demagogues to lead it, which thankfully are few in contemporary Britain. The Tory leadership disavowed Powell and he died in relative obscurity in 1998.

Despite the potential for rabble-rousing that this issue has, economists tend to agree that immigration provides a net benefit to receiving countries. Immigrants fill jobs that citizens reject, help maintain competitiveness in the global economy, stimulate job creation in depressed neighbourhoods, and contribute to poverty reduction at home, they say.

“Right now,” said New York Times columnist David Brooks, reflecting the fears of many ordinary Bahamians, “immigration chaos is spreading a subculture of criminality across America. The system is out of control. 

“But we can't just act like lunkheads and think we can solve this problem with brute force,” he argued. “We're not going to get this situation under control until we understand this paradox: Tough enforcement laws make us feel good but they don't do the job. 

“We need these workers, but we force them underground with our self-delusional immigration policies. The problem is that we make it nearly impossible for the immigrants to come here legally.”

In the Bahamas today, tens of thousands of Haitian migrants are marginalised from the rest of society, squatting in illegal settlements - vulnerable and disenfranchised. And their children face strong barriers to joining society. As one commentator put it, “If we had set out to create an underclass, we could not have done a better job.”

Our response so far to this growing problem – which more and more people consider to be a looming crisis – has been limited and ineffectual. Successive governments have rounded up and deported small batches of illegal immigrants since at least the 1950s, and far from there being an end in sight, the numbers and the costs only get bigger.

More to the point, there is not enough information in the public domain to support an intelligent debate on policy options to address this issue. In fact, we don’t even know how many Haitians (and others) are living amongst us, much less what they are thinking or doing.

In 1980, there were “officially” 11,000 Haitians recorded in a total population of 240,000. In 2000, the official count was 21,000, or 7 per cent of the population. But more realistic estimates put the number of illegal Haitians today at 25 per cent of the current population of 310,000 - or some 78,000.

So the government recently asked the International Organization for Migration for help. The IOM is an inter-governmental agency that developed from efforts to resolve refugee problems following World War Two. And experts from the IOM are now reviewing our border controls and counting illegals in the country.

On balance, the IOM thinks migration is a good thing: “In our shrinking world, governments will need to develop sound migration policies and practices. Properly managed, migration can contribute to prosperity, development and mutual understanding.”

Its recently published report addresses the costs and benefits of world migration, which affects all 190 sovereign nations. The UN expects there to be about 185 million international migrants this year.

Experts say we should be globalising our labour markets as we have done with goods and services: “Restrictive migration regimes contradict the increasingly open flow of goods, capital and foreign direct investments...an asymmetry that tries to correct itself through irregular and clandestine migration.”

The IOM urges programmes like that which the Bush administration is advocating. In this view, countries like the Bahamas benefit from a motivated workforce that fills genuine labour needs, while migrants benefit from expanded access to legal (but temporary) employment in higher-income countries.

It should be clear to most of us that the Bahamian construction and agricultural industries would collapse overnight without immigrant labour. It is equally clear that family remittances are important to the economic survival of poor countries like Haiti. And it is in our strong interest to support stability and development in Haiti.

An innovative guest worker programme would go a long way towards resolving our so-called “Haitian Problem” - assuming that the government could administer it efficiently and honestly, while taking the political risk of confronting the demagogues on every corner who will cry doom.

Such a policy could issue sectoral or category work permits to protect migrants from exploitation by employers and allow them more freedom of movement. And employers could pay a monthly fee for each foreign worker they employed as an incentive to hire locals first.

In Singapore, for example, the government sets and regularly revises flexible foreign worker levies specific to the sector of employment and the skill level of the migrant worker. These revenues can be used to help cover integration and enforcement costs.

“Such a system would essentially be based on a bargaining process,” the IOM says. “Employers, workers and the government (can) collectively bargain over the number of foreign workers to be admitted, and over the price that local employers would pay...A mixture of incentives and enforcement is needed to facilitate the return of migrant workers.”

Incentives would include the ability to travel freely, as well as the transfer of social security payments and savings to the home country. Clear procedures to remove those who overstay their temporary visas would also be needed, as well as penalties for employers who abuse the system. But all of this depends on political will, something which Bahamian governments sadly lack.

“The success of any (guest worker programme) ultimately depends on the receiving country’s willingness to strictly enforce the law against all parties - recruitment agents, employers, and migrants - who circumvent the programme,” the IOM says.

Unfortunately, the immigration debate is too often hijacked by negative, populist sloganeering, which discourages sound policymaking. The anger and frustration of ordinary Bahamians confronting this issue is palpable, but that is entirely the government’s fault. Information is inadequate, diffuse and often confusing, which only helps those who want to politicize the debate.

No doubt Health Minister Dr Marcus Bethel was genuinely concerned about the alarmist information published in the Tribune recently about Haitian births outnumbering Bahamians. If so, he would do well to encourage his colleagues to discuss the matter openly and ensure that the press has access to information.

And we can get a glimpse of the advice that the IOM consultants will soon be giving our government by reading the World Migration report (http://www.iom.int/iomwebsite/). This document says that the integration of immigrants should be a national priority:

“Failure to integrate immigrants and minorities can exacerbate social and economic schisms and fragment societies along ethnic, racial and religious lines. The risk lies in creating a visible minority underclass that is dysfunctional and unreceptive to policy intervention. Such an outcome would further (aggravate) disparities and (create) a downward spiral of poverty, ghettoization and despair.”

Integration, as well all know, touches on issues of culture and belonging, nationality, identity and citizenship that are critical for any society seeking to ensure social stability. Approaches to integration range from segregation to assimilation.

Unless Bahamians want to become Haitianized, our goal should be assimilation of migrants within Bahamian culture. But the IOM says this “is based on the expected outcome of full citizenship, and sharing of common civic values with the native population.”

Continuing to exclude, denigrate and exploit the Haitian community will have serious repercussions. The social and economic costs of neglecting migrants will be immeasurable, and our politicians must undertake some unaccustomed leadership to avoid this.

George Bush said recently that Americans must set “high expectations for what new citizens should know. An understanding of what it means to be an American is not a formality in the naturalization process, it is essential to full participation in our democracy.”

In a 1994 article on Haitian immigration, Education Minister Alfred Sears – who is also the attorney-general – pointed to a “growing phobia” among Bahamians that could “explode into violent confrontation.”

He called for an independent body to regularise and begin the integration of the Haitian community into Bahamian society, including a nationwide public education campaign focusing on their contributions.

But the years drift by. And here we are today, consumed by the fear that we may soon be outgunned in our own land while our politicians continue to play the fiddle. Perhaps an apocalypse is in the cards after all.

Comments

[SSS]

"Your article did everything but mention the word that should prefix any comment on the benefits and advantages of migration: 'controlled'.

Secondly, you neglected to address the need for a more balanced approach to migration, i.e. balancing our intake of those who come with 'cap in hand' and to whom we can provide help with those who can supplement our skills base and provide us with much needed help, in return".

Thank you,
S Seymour
Edinburgh, Scotland

[las]

Thanks. I think a formalised guest worker programme implies 'control'. However, I will post earlier articles that deal with different aspects of this important subject.

[M. Thompson]

your article did everything but mention the haitians use of out health, education and social services.