Bahamas, Turks & Caicos tell Trump they will not be dumping grounds for U.S. deportees
The governments of The Bahamas and the neighboring Turks and Caicos Islands say they are opposed to any effort by the incoming Trump administration to turn their sun-swept countries into dumping grounds for migrants from other countries.
Both countries issued statements on Thursday after NBC News reported that the Trump administration was preparing a list of countries to where it might ship migrants as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to make good on his promise for massively deportations from the United States. The migrants would be sent to the countries if rejected by their home countries. The news report specifically mentioned Panama, Grenada and the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British dependency at the southern tip of The Bahamas, which was also named.
“The Bahamas simply does not have the resources to accommodate such a request,” the office of Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said in a statement. “The prime minister’s priorities remain focused on addressing the concerns of The Bahamian people.”
The Miami Herald has reached out to the Trump transition team but had not heard back by publication.
The statement from Davis’ office, however, indicates that there may have been initial discussions although no details were provided. The idea of accepting deportation flights from the U.S. was presented to his government, the statement said, “but was reviewed and firmly rejected by the prime minister.”
“There has been no further engagement or discussions with the Trump transition team or any other entity regarding this matter,” Davis’ office said, adding that the government’s position will not change.
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Under the proposed plan, as indicated by The Bahamas’ statement, migrants put on deportation flights and sent to the countries would be from other nations. It’s a policy that the current administration has tried to also pursue. Recently, for example, Suriname, the Dutch-speaking nation at the tip of South America that is a member of the 15-Caribbean Community regional bloc known as CARICOM, agreed to accept refugees from Afghanistan after it was approached by the Biden administration.
But such agreements are rare in a region that has long struggled to manage undocumented migrants from Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela, countries in crisis, as well as neighboring islands whose economies have been troubled. Suriname, The Bahamas and Grenada are all full members of CARICOM, while the Turks and Caicos holds associate members status.
Each has their own migration policy. The Bahamas, for example, rejects migrants of Haitian descent who were born within its borders, but under Bahamian law were not considered citizens because the country doesn’t recognize automatic birthright citizenship.
As a regional bloc, Caribbean nations as a whole have been highly critical of the U.S.’s deportation policies, accusing numerous administrations in Washington through the years of contributing to increased crime in their small nations by dumping deportees who became criminals while in the U.S.
“Our government remains committed to maintaining strong diplomatic relations with the United States and our other international partners,” Arlington Musgrove, the minister of immigration and border services for the Turks and Caicos said. “However, we are steadfast in our commitment to protecting the interests of the Turks and Caicos Islands and upholding the integrity of our immigration system.”
The archipelago of some 40,000 residents is currently wrestling with both an unprecedented increase in drugs and gun-related homicides in Providenciales, the popular tourism hotspot, and irregular migration flows from neighboring Haiti. The escalating crime has already lead to 43 homicides this year with police sometimes reporting multiple murders taking place in one day on Providenciales.
Meanwhile, undocumented Haitians continue to wash ashore. In 2023, the territory interdicted 4,016 Haitians during 32 separate police and partner operations, according to statistics from the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force provided to the Herald. Though the numbers this year have been on the decline, more than 800 irregular migrants from Haiti have already been interdicted and returned.
The Turks and Caicos, Musgrove said, will not allow external policies to undermine or dictate its national security, he said, noting that they were already struggling to deal with an increase in irregular migration from Haiti as the country plunges deeper into turmoil.
“Turks and Caicos, like all nations, has the sovereign right to determine who may reside within its borders. The unilateral imposition of third-country deportation policies, such as those reportedly under consideration by the incoming Trump administration, is fundamentally at odds with international norms and legal standards,” Musgrove. “We are deeply concerned about any suggestion of displacing individuals to countries with which they have no connection. Such policies disregard the cultural, social, and economic implications for receiving countries and the humanitarian impact on the individuals affected.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 12:53 PM.
