COAST GUARD STOPS HAITIAN MIGRANT SURGE, BUT LONG

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
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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.

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U.S. EFFORTS SAVE BAHAMAS 100K AND MANY HEADACHES
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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
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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