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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Humans |
|---|---|
| located: | Bahamas, The, USA |
| editor: | Yair Oded |
Hurricane Dorian has wreaked havoc across the Caribbean and Atlantic North America this past week, with the Bahamian islands of Abaco and Grand Bahamas hit hardest. The Category 5 storm, which left over 70,000 Bahamians homeless, hundreds missing, and at least 50 dead (a number that is expected to rise significantly), prompted thousands to evacuate to the United States. Earlier this week, however, roughly 130 storm survivors were ordered to disembark from a ferry that was headed to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, due to the fact they had no valid U.S. visas.
The passengers, many of whom were families with children, were asked to get off the ferry by the operator the Balearia ferry, who claimed people must have the proper documentation in order to enter the U.S. for them to stay on the boat.
This bluntly contradicted the information given to Bahamians by the American Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which announced on its website that survivors of the storm will be permitted to seek refuge in the United States without visas. In a press conference shortly after the news about the turning away of refugees broke out, acting CBP head Mark Morgan clarified that, "This is a humanitarian mission… if your life is in jeopardy and you’re in the Bahamas … you’re going to be allowed to come to the United States, whether you have travel documents or not,” and assured that the process of admitting Bahamian survivors of Dorian would be done swiftly.
On the same day, a CBP spokesperson shifted the blame for the incident onto the company operating the ferry, stating that, "We're there to facilitate and accommodate that process in an orderly fashion, according to regulation and protocol. However, Balearia did not do that… We asked them to coordinate ahead of time. They did not do that."
The CBP port director at Port Everglades, Florida, echoed similar statements, telling CNN that, “[W]e would have processed them, we would have done vetting and, you know, we would have done everything we needed to do within the US laws and regulations to determine their admissibility and process them accordingly.”
Yet while on the whole, CBP asserted its commitment to aid Bahamian refugees fleeing the humanitarian crisis in the wake of Dorian, President Trump conveyed the opposite message, in stark contradiction to his own immigration authorities. During a Q&A with reporters in which he was asked about the Balearia ferry incident, Trump advocated against admitting Bahamian refugees without visas, arguing that “very bad people” could exploit the situation to infiltrate into the U.S.
“We have to be very careful… Everybody needs totally proper documentation. Because, look, the Bahamas had some tremendous problems with people going to the Bahamas that weren’t supposed to be there.”
Trump’s remarks on Bahamian refugees fit right into his administration’s anti-immigration agenda. Since being sworn into office, the president and his administration have waged a multi-faceted war against immigrants, migrants, and refugees through draconian policies, harsh decrees, and egregiously xenophobic and racist language.
It is important to remember that while the president spews his hateful remarks and the various agencies strive to relieve themselves from blame, thousands of Bahamians struggle to survive in what reportedly resembles more of a post-nuclear zone than an island.
(Photo: Jose Jimenez/Getty Images)
