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CHAPTER 3

The Bahamas: Neither Fish Nor Fowl

The social reality is that we have a very large number of persons in this society of Haitian extraction who have a very dubious status in The Bahamas; neither fish nor fowl. They don’t qualify for Bahamian citizenship constitutionally and conversely there are issues as to whether they have retained Haitian citizenship.

—former governmental official; personal interview

When we think about forced displacement, the Caribbean is not necessarily the first place that comes to mind, even though hurricanes and earthquakes do forcibly displace people within their island homes. Instead, we tend to think of the region as a prime tourist destination, a place where we can relax on the beach, play in the casinos, hike through tropical forests, visit wetlands, and an array of other such similar activities. “Paradise.” Yet for an untold number of people, this paradise has become an inferno. Far from a world of blurred boundaries, flexible citizenships, and denationalized rights, these stateless—or at risk of statelessness—populations find walls erected against their belonging at nearly every turn. Unable to secure any effective citizenship, their rights are highly precarious and they are displaced in situ.

While states have created an intricate web of domestic laws to distinguish who has membership in the polity, the right to belong formally to a state via citizenship is conditioned by other factors as well. Political practices, bureaucratic procedures, and discrimination also play their part in determining who belongs. The fulfillment of one’s human right to a nationality is thus far more complex in practice than simply determining to whom (jus sanguinis citizenship acquisition) and where one was born (jus soli citizenship acquisition). Through the case study of The Bahamas, this chapter illustrates how exclusionary citizenship laws, electoral politics, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and cronyism work together to displace Bahamian-born persons of Haitian descent into liminality or into the category of Haitian national without consent.

Situating the Case Study

The Bahamas is a chain of over seven hundred islands and cays off the coast of Florida. Its northern tip, located in the Abacos, reaches as far north as West Palm Beach, Florida, while its southern land mass extends as far as southern Cuba. Great Inagua, the most southerly island in the archipelago, lies less than eighty-five miles from Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Despite their geographical closeness, The Bahamas and Haiti could not be more distant in terms of economic, political, and human development. With a Gross National Income (GNI) of $21,280 per capita, The Bahamas is considered a high-income developing country (UNCTAD 2012, xii, xvi; World Bank 2013a). Haiti, on the other hand, is considered a “heavily indebted poor country” (UNCTAD 2012, xv), with a GNI of only $760 and with more than 75 percent of its population living in poverty (World Bank 2013b). Although The Bahamas’ unemployment rate is high at nearly 13 percent (Government of The Bahamas 2016, 17), it pales in comparison to the estimated 70 percent or higher unemployment rate in Haiti (Bergdahl 2012 n. pag.).

In comparison to the peaceful transitions of power in The Bahamas, Haiti has undergone numerous political challenges since the 1950s.¹ From political violence and the dictatorships of the Duvaliers to coups d’état and environmental catastrophes—such as the 2010 earthquake that destabilized much of the country and left hundreds of thousands internally displaced—Haiti is far from the “Pearl of the Antilles” that it once was. Due to The Bahamas’ proximity both to Haiti and to the United States, its stronger economy, and the fact that it outranks Haiti in education, healthcare, sanitation, and other measures of the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index (UNDP 2013b),² it is unsurprising that Haitians migrate to The Bahamas, whether temporarily or permanently, in search of a better life. In fact, and noted in Chapter 1, The Bahamas is one of the top three destinations for irregular Haitian migration (IOM 2013, 23).³

Although the precise number of irregular Haitian migrants in The Bahamas is unknown, hundreds, if not thousands of Haitians are speculated to migrate to the country each year through irregular or unauthorized channels. Many of these migrants remain in The Bahamas. According to the latest census numbers, 11 percent of the Bahamian population⁴ is made up of Haitian nationals⁵ (Government of The Bahamas 2012, 89 and 90, Table 9.0), but this figure does not capture the undocumented population,⁶ which is notoriously difficult to enumerate. Many of these migrants have children in The Bahamas, some of whom are at risk of becoming stateless.

The Legal Context

Bahamian nationality law is neutral in theory. Thus, while Dawn Marshall argued that The Bahamas Independence Order of 1973 “further restricted the possibilities for children born of Haitian parents in the Bahamas to claim Bahamian citizenship” (1979, 127), neither the Bahamian Constitution, nor any of The Bahamas’ Acts addressing nationality—such as Chapter 190/Bahamas Nationality Act and Chapter 191/Immigration Act—specifically target Haitian migrants or their descendants when it comes to the acquisition of Bahamian citizenship. The qualified nature of the jus sanguinis and jus soli provisions of the Constitution applies equally to all persons born of noncitizens on the territory.

Nationality acquisition is qualified in the following ways: a child born in The Bahamas may only become a Bahamian citizen if one of his or her parents is a Bahamian citizen (Government of The Bahamas 1973a, Article 6). This Article is not specific to any particular race or ethnicity. Those individuals born in the country, neither of whose parents is a Bahamian citizen, are permitted to apply for Bahamian citizenship through registration within twelve months of turning eighteen (Article 7), but there is no guarantee they will obtain Bahamian citizenship. As a former Free National Movement (FNM) official makes clear, “it’s not an automatic entitlement.”⁷ Statelessness is therefore a possibility if the child does not possess another nationality. Those who miss the eighteen- to nineteen-year-old application window must go through the regular naturalization procedure, a more involved, time-consuming, and costly process than registration. It is of note that being born in The Bahamas does not provide any benefit in expediting the naturalization process for those who miss the one-year registration window. As an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) makes clear, “The fact that the individual was born in The Bahamas has no bearing on the application for naturalization” (italics added).⁸

The Bahamian Constitution states that only the governor-general is able to deprive a Bahamian national of citizenship (Government of The Bahamas 1973a, Article 11), but adds that Parliament has powers to deprive and bestow citizenship on persons by means that are not addressed in the Constitution (Article 13). Chapter 190/Bahamas Nationality Act (1973b) provides more extensive details regarding the acquisition and loss of Bahamian citizenship and also discusses the provision of nationality to non-Bahamian adopted children and minors generally. It details the reasons for loss of Bahamian citizenship, which include acquiring Bahamian citizenship through fraudulent means, committing a crime within five years of obtaining said citizenship, or demonstrating disloyalty to the country, among other criteria, if a naturalized citizen or a citizen via registration (Article 11.2). Again, in none of these cases are individuals of Haitian descent—or of any other particular ethnicity—specifically targeted.

What is of note is that the Nationality Act provides extraordinary leeway and power to the minister in charge of naturalization and immigration, which today falls under the portfolio of the minister of foreign affairs. In a thirteen-page act, not including the final two pages that deal with schedules of different types, the phrase “the Minister may at his discretion” appears ten times. The minister may thus grant and revoke citizenship at his or her discretion, often without having to confer with any other governmental body. Even when the minister is supposed to refer a case of citizenship deprivation to a “committee of inquiry,” which then recommends whether or not said deprivation should take place, the minister is under no obligation “to act upon or in accordance with any such recommendation” (Article 11.8). Moreover, any decision of the minister regarding citizenship acquisition or deprivation is not subject to judicial review:

The Minister shall not be required to assign any reason for the grant or refusal of any application or the making of any order under this Act the decision upon which is at his discretion; and the decision of the Minister on any such application or order shall not be subject to appeal or review in any court. (Article 16)

In practice, however, questions regarding the grant of citizenship are typically performed by cabinet, which consists of the ministers of the executive branch of government, and not by the minister “in charge of naturalization and immigration.” As one former minister of the FNM government explains, a citizenship application “goes before Cabinet, and Cabinet considers it” or the citizenship application goes to the minister of foreign affairs who “prepare[s] a Cabinet brief” and then sends that brief to cabinet to consider.⁹ The entire cabinet then decides on the basis of consensus whether to grant or deny citizenship to an individual. Alfred Sears, former attorney general of The Bahamas (2002–2006) and former minister of education, science, and technology under the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) administration admits that such a procedure often “takes up a lot of cabinet time” because each application is dealt with individually, making it a “cumbersome” process.¹⁰ It remains, however, that these cabinet citizenship decisions are not subject to judicial review. As I illustrate, this is highly problematic given that the practice of granting Bahamian citizenship is highly politicized and fraught with bureaucratic inconsistencies.

The Political Context

In “Client-Ship and Citizenship in Latin America,” Lucy Taylor explains how clientelistic practices and charismatic leaders have shaped Latin American politics. Clientelism, she explains, “is not about equality but inequality … it is not about rights but about favours … it is not about democracy but about negotiated authoritarianism … [and] Finally, it is not about formal relationships but personal ties” (2004, 214). Her comments are applicable to the broader region, including the Caribbean. While The Bahamas is far from being an authoritarian state—as I explain in Chapter 1, it is considered a democracy—favoritism and the use of personal ties (cronyism) to achieve a particular good or political gain has plagued much of its post-Independence history, infiltrating the realm of citizenship determination.

Sir Lynden O. Pindling, the individual who led the country to Independence and who became the country’s first prime minister, is heralded as the “Black Moses” among many Bahamians. “I just remember people worshiping him.… He was always this grand myth to me,” says Travolta Cooper, the writer and director of the “Black Moses” documentary on Sir Pindling (Nicolls 2013). Sir Pindling’s PLP government, which lasted twenty-five years (1967–1992) was accused of corruption and cronyism from many sectors of society, both Bahamian and abroad (Dahlburg 1982; Freedland 1992). As Frederick Donathan explains, “The government’s tentacles spread very far.… You got accustomed to thinking, ‘I better vote for the old regime, in case they get in again’” (qtd. in Freedland 1992). When Hubert A. Ingraham, the then leader of the opposition FNM became the second prime minister of The Bahamas in 1992 he vowed to create a “government in the sunshine” where transparency and fairness would reign (Freedland 1992; see also I. Smith 2012).

A “government in the sunshine” never transpired, however, and accusations of corruption and cronyism continue to the present day. The PLP is once again in power and former prime minister Ingraham recently lambasted the party for “victimising” civil servants and removing them from their jobs because they are not PLP supporters (Evans 2012). Current FNM leader, Dr. Hubert Minnis recently published a statement on the PLP government’s “Unadulterated tribalism, cronyism and out-and-out nepotism!” (Bahamas Weekly 2012 n. pag.). The PLP has also issued its fair share of corruption and cronyism accusations against FNM administrations as well (S. Brown 2013).

Just as Taylor finds that a “goods-for-power” deal operates in many Latin American countries, wherein “People support a certain patron because they gamble that to do so will improve their own or their family’s prospects” (2004, 215), Bahamian politics seems to be infused with such a mentality. When it comes to Haitian migrants and their descendants, the “good” is citizenship and no matter the party in power (PLP or FNM) this good suddenly becomes more readily available prior to a general election.

Study participants, Haitian and non-Haitian alike, remark that the number of citizenships awarded to foreigners escalates around election time. As one anonymous interviewee laments, “There’s the issue of the politics of citizenship in terms of who gets it. How is it awarded? It’s a cabinet decision—there is just so much room for abuse, with so much room for timing it to coincide with elections. It’s a seriously flawed approach.”¹¹ Gwendolyn Brice-Adderley, a lawyer for the Nationality Support Unit¹² in Nassau, adds that “I know around election time some of those applications are fast forward.”¹³ While Harry Dolce, a Bahamian-born police officer of Haitian descent who went through the citizenship registration process, explains how “you’ll have certain times during the election period” where “they’ll hold your citizenship—no matter if you’ve applied three years ago, two years ago. But when it comes time to election, [they say], ‘Okay, we’re gonna give you your citizenship. Okay, you’re a Bahamian.’”¹⁴ George Charité, a medical doctor of Haitian descent on the island of Abaco, similarly affirms that “It could take elections” for individuals’ citizenship applications to be considered. “They normally get up around election time,” he says, “they make them citizens. So pray to God and thank God for elections. Election coming up.… Most likely you’ll get [citizenship].”¹⁵ Such allegations are not limited to study participants either. The Bahama Journal (2013) cites Lovy Jean, a Bahamian-born student of Haitian descent who spoke before the Bahamas Constitutional Commission,¹⁶ stating that difficulties exist in getting Bahamian citizenship unless “you’re lucky during a general election [and] you’d get it right away.”

Newspaper articles and letters to the editor also report on the regularization of “hundreds” of Haitian nationals as Bahamian citizens prior to elections as a means for the ruling party to increase its vote share.¹⁷ The Nassau Guardian, for example, states that “a monthly average of 31” citizenship applications were approved “between May 2, 2007 and June 30, 2010” for a total of “1,144 citizenship applications” (McCartney 2011). This number more than doubled to “a monthly average of about 75” applications “between November 18, 2011 and January 13, 2012”—less than four months prior to the 2012 general election (2011). According to then deputy prime minister Brent Symonette of the FNM party, the increased number of citizenship approvals was due to “improved efficiencies” regarding “applications that had been languishing for many years” within the Department of Immigration (DoI) (2011)¹⁸ and not because of politically motivated reasons.

Archival data I obtained from the Haitian Embassy in Nassau point to an increased number of Haitian nationality renunciations in the years prior to the 2007 and 2012 general elections (see Table 1). This is of note because, as part of the Bahamian citizenship application process, a person must renounce his or her current nationality in order to be eligible to be sworn in as a Bahamian citizen. Table 1 demonstrates that 359 Haitian nationals renounced their nationality in 2006, or an average of 29 individuals per month. This number increases to an average of 41 renunciations per month in the period of January through April, 2007, just prior to the May 2 general election. In relation to the aforementioned statistic provided in the Nassau Guardian article—1,144 Bahamian citizenship conferrals in the period May 2007 through June 2010—the data in Table 1 illustrates that 543 persons renounced their Haitian nationality during this period.

Without data from the Department of Immigration listing the number of former Haitian nationals who obtained Bahamian citizenship during this time, there is no way to know whether these 543 individuals (47 percent of the 1,144 persons) obtained Bahamian citizenship or what the nationality was of the other 53 percent of Bahamian citizenship recipients.¹⁹ In email correspondence from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MFA notes that the Department of Immigration “does not have statistics on the number of applications for citizenship each year. However we do have statistics on those persons who are sworn in as citizens. On average, between 265 and 400 such persons are sworn in each year since 2007.” If we assume that these 543 persons in Table 1 obtained Bahamian citizenship, it appears that Haitian nationals make up a large proportion of naturalized Bahamians during this three-year period. This is not surprising, however, given the aforementioned statistic that Haitians make up 11 percent of the Bahamian population, which is the largest foreign presence in the country.

Table 1: Haitian Nationality Renunciations by Year, 2003–2011

Source: Original printout provided to the author by Ambassador Rodrigue, Haitian Embassy, Nassau, Bahamas, October 31, 2012. Total of 2,229 renunciations.

Whether former Haitian nationals are the recipients of the majority of these grants of Bahamian citizenship, it appears—in the words of Haitian ambassador Antonio Rodrigue—that “The question of citizenship is very political here [in The Bahamas].”²⁰ As Ambassador Rodrigue observes, pointing to the data in Table 1, the trend of Haitian nationality renunciations prior to general elections holds regardless of which political party is in power (see Figure 4 for a graphic depiction of the preelection peaks):

Figure 4. Renunciation peaks before 2007 and 2012 Bahamian general elections.

When you are close to the election, it [the number of renunciations] rose. After the election, here, the number is almost close to zero a month. And when you go getting close to the election, there’s a peak. There’s a peak. In this formulation of 2002, 2007, and 2012 you can see that. So each government … before the election, they issue a lot of citizenships.

The politicized nature of Bahamian citizenship bestowal is not merely reflected in data held at the Haitian Embassy or in Bahamian newspaper articles, however. As the study participants make clear, obtaining Bahamian citizenship is often predicated on knowing someone in the Department of Immigration or elsewhere in government who can do you the “favor” of granting you citizenship. Formal politics and informal personal connections thus have an equally significant influence on citizenship decisions in The Bahamas.

Bureaucratic Failures

Describing the reality of Latin American politics, Taylor states that “the only way to get anything done is to ‘pay an extra fee’ or ask a ‘friend’ to cut through the red tape on your behalf” (Taylor 2004, 213). Taylor may as well have been writing about the Bahamian case as her quote aptly captures one of the problems associated with bureaucratic failure in The Bahamas: going through official channels, and following the rules to acquire the “good” of citizenship does not necessarily translate into the most efficient way to obtain Bahamian citizenship. As artist Bernard Petit-Homme explains, he applied for Bahamian citizenship when he turned eighteen, but it took him three years to acquire citizenship, despite being born in the country and meeting all the requirements. He thinks it probably would have taken longer to acquire Bahamian citizenship if he had not run into a former high-ranking government official who had a friend in the Department of Immigration who was able to act on Petit-Homme’s application. “They called me the following week to say it is ready. So that’s how I got it,” he says.²¹

Desmangles similarly observes that “It’s all about networking and who knows who in some instances.” He adds that in his case, “it came to a point where I had to think for myself, ‘Who do I know out there? Who can assist me? Who can make this possible?’”²² Bianca Zaiem, born of noncitizen parents in The Bahamas, also remarks that “a lot of people get citizenship by doing favors for other people. And I feel like that’s hurt us over the years. So normal people like me who want to do it the right way are pushed aside for somebody who’s getting a favor done by somebody else.”²³ Natacha Jn-Simon, a College of The Bahamas student, adds that sometimes these “favors” take on a more sinister tone:

You know what they have the Haitian kids subduing to? It’s like okay, I’m a female, right, and you’re in Parliament or [you’re] someone who is connected with government. And let’s say you see me on the road or something, and you see that I look nice. And people have to realize that just as they say poverty is like a state of mind, you feel encapsulated, wherever you see a way out, it’s what you’re gonna do. So when these young ladies see these men [who say], “Oh, I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna do this for you. I’m gonna help you do this.” That’s how a lot of them get their citizenship you know. This guy said, “Okay, well, just be my friend.” You understand? “I have friends, I know people in immigration. I could get your stuff out.” It’s sad.²⁴

Table 2: Participants Born to Noncitizens in The Bahamas

^*Name changed to protect anonymity, as per interviewee’s request.

^aDolce says, “I think I applied at 18,” but is unsure as he “wasn’t kind of interested anymore” because of the way the Department of Immigration was treating him at the time. He admits, however, that “at a certain point you say, ‘Listen here, okay, I am going to do it.’ You have to comply and complain afterwards.”

^bDumercy began the process at eighteen but due to a number of complications submitted her application three days after she turned nineteen. As a result, she had to begin the process again, but under a new procedure—naturalization—with additional requirements and costs since she had missed the one year window in which to apply via registration.

As illustrated in Table 2, most Bahamian-born participants of noncitizen parents waited several years to hear back from the Department of Immigration on their citizenship application. Desmangles believes this is not uncommon. He thinks maybe one out of a hundred applicants will acquire their citizenship three to six months after they apply for it, but the other “99 of them, they’re gonna have to wait until five years to get it.” Ambassador Rodrigue notes that if a person applies for citizenship after the one-year mark beginning at age eighteen then “It can take up to 12 years. I’ve had people say they were waiting for 12 years. It can take 5 years, 8 years, 10 years. Because now you are going through another type of process. Between 18 and 19, it’s like almost a natural or normal process to get it. But after 18, after 19, I don’t know.”²⁵

While in Nassau, I was able to read an award of citizenship letter from the Bahamian government that was dated May 21, 2012. The person to whom the letter was addressed had applied for Bahamian citizenship on May 2, 1997. It took a decade and a half for the Department of Immigration to make a decision on that individual’s application.²⁶ Whether or not this is an example of an extreme situation, Marie St. Cecile, born in The Bahamas to Haitian parents, remarks that her parents were able to acquire Bahamian citizenship before she did. St. Cecile did not apply for Bahamian citizenship at eighteen because “I basically didn’t know that I should, that you should apply at 18 at that time. So I applied late.”²⁷ She adds that she thought that “once I applied, I would automatically get it because of my age and all that stuff,” but that this was not the case. She had to wait eight years for the Bahamian government to give her citizenship and, in that time, her Haitian-born parents obtained Bahamian citizenship: