The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

There are few subjects that evoke as much emotion as that of immigration in Bahamian society. I would like to focus on illegal immigration.

Most Bahamians feel that illegal immigrants deplete our resources and are more of a burden on our country because they somehow receive public healthcare and education and are prone to construct and inhabit shanty towns. Some feel that illegal immigrants lower wages and bring down the standard of living that we presently enjoy and are accustomed to.

The present administration has recently embarked on a movement to somehow clean the country of illegal immigrants which we all are aware are the Haitian population. Let’s for a moment put on our intellectual heads and leave out emotion, the reality is that we, along with any other country will never eliminate illegal immigration. We can only limit it.

There is a strong “push and pull” factor that continues to drive the illegal immigration issue. The “push” factor are the dire straits that Haiti finds itself, which historically, are not theirs of their own making but after years of poor government the country continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world. Haitians have to make the hard decision of existing at a bare subsistence level or somehow take a rinky-dink boat, cross the treacherous seas and get to another country, preferably the United States or The Bahamas, in an attempt to find work and better themselves. Many of them perish on the high seas but some manage to make it to a country where they can find work. One must admire anybody that leaves his own country under these circumstances and arrives in another land with little or no skills, unable to speak the language and in relatively short periods of time better themselves exponentially.

What’s the “pull factor”?

The consistent need for low wage labour that The Bahamas needs and desires. Illegal immigrants are in general more reliable, more productive than the average Bahamian worker who in most cases are unwilling to perform the low wage labour that businesses desire and need. The cost of production must be at the level that guarantees the existence of many businesses. It makes little sense to pay the high labour costs that Bahamians so call demand or their employers whom are already struggling to exist in a climate of extreme taxes and difficulty in doing business.

The illegal immigrant over decades in the Bahamas has freed up the low wage Bahamian worker and allowed them to take the higher wage jobs in the tourism sector, it allowed them to become contractors and successful businessmen when ordinarily they wouldn’t have been.

Examine the various businesses that exist throughout our country, many of them have had an illegal immigrant at one time or another that contributed to the building of their businesses. Imagine the construction industry, the retail and wholesale merchants, the agricultural sector, the regular Bahamian household and all of the hard and dirty work required on a daily basis without illegal immigrants, we would simply collapse as a functioning economy.

But what about the drain on our social services like health care and education?

Illegal immigrants prefer not to go to the public hospitals for fear they might be exposed, they are in general law-abiding hoping to avoid the police and immigration officials that might get them deported. To say that the illegal immigrants are happy when they are deported because they are given $100 to $200 and a ride on Bahamasair is just stupid. Many come at the mature age and don’t have the need to enter the public school system, but if they have children that do, they excel and contribute tremendously to our society, just look at our school system. Even if they receive a little health care or education they have paid for it in the form of cheap labour. They pay taxes just like the rest of us, but slightly higher when you consider the percentage of their income.

The Bahamas has little intellectual or cheap labour. For the past 15-20 years. We have been producing functional illiterates whom have little desire to work for a minimum wage. Many are ill disciplined and are socially incapable of holding a minimum wage job for any sustained period. Many businesses have gone beyond the call of duty to employ these people, but to little or no avail. We have lost the culture of discipline and hard work of the sixties and seventies and nobody, including the government, knows how to instil it back into our society. The illegal immigrant has taken the place of these ill disciplined citizens and no matter what happens to the illegal immigrant the low wage Bahamian worker will not step up to the plate.

But what about the illegal immigrants taking us over?

Some people claim that the illegal immigrant represents an assault on our sovereignty. If this were true, then it would be the first time in world history that the country has employed its invaders. When an illegal immigrant enters The Bahamas there is a Bahamian citizen waiting to hire them and benefit in some manner from their labour.

Finally, criminalising immigration does not solve the problem, it was Milton Friedman who stated that “when bad laws that makes socially advantageous acts illegal only leads to the undermining of morality in general”. We are economically and culturally asleep with little prospects for the future, we have lots of land to develop and an economy to build. We cannot grow by exclusion we need more inclusion. We cannot allow talk show hosts, politicians and lawyers whom insight xenophobia and prejudice against the illegal immigrant to drive the debate we need economists, the labour department and researchers to give us a clearer view of this muddled discussion.

EUGENE BECKFORD

Nassau

May 15, 2019