Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Fred Mitchell revealed in this House of Assembly this week that he has approached the United States on several occasions about entering a visa free travel treaty with The Bahamas.
Mitchell told Parliamentarians, “in previous incarnations of the US government I’ve said to them and I’ve indicated in private discussions with the Prime Minister that I think we ought to formally propose to the United States a treaty between ourselves for visa free access to Bahamians to the US. I’ve said to them, particularly since in these days of climate change and all these other climate emergencies that if the 400,000 of us move to the States it wouldn’t make a difference, in terms of impact on the population. But the fact is that you have to behave lawfully and this ought to be lawful entry into another country.”
The foreign affairs minister also spoke to the importance of the Smuggling Of Migrants Bill. He said, “that’s what this is designed to indicate, to send a signal to the world, to our neighbours that we are serious on this point of smuggling and unlawful entry of our people and people using this country to go into another country unlawfully. The bill doesn’t solve all problems but public policy requires signals sometimes that your are serious in the enterprise in which you are engaged and there’s no sense about complaining about the asymmetry because we have asymmetries with all the countries surrounding us.”
The Smuggling Of Migrants Bill passed in the House of Assembly on Monday.
