The Premier and Minister of Immigration and Border Services of the Turks and Caicos Islands were in The Bahamas for the opening of the Turks and Caicos Diaspora Office. While speaking with members of the media they addressed their country’s immigration issues.
Premier Charles Washington Missick said, “I think we have more assets, more ariel assets and other assets so that interception rate is increasing significantly. So the number of interceptions are growing including the effort that we worked with The Bahamas on in our joint relationship, without that a lot more of those people would land.”
The TCI Minister of Immigration and Border Services, Arlington Musgrove spoke about the collaborative efforts of his country and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. “We bought two radars so to put them on either side of the island…with that coverage we will be able to spot anything out of the ordinary. On back of that, we signed an agreement with The Bahamas, a ship gratis agreement, so with that agreement, two officers from the Turks and Caicos Islands can ride on the Bahamas Defence Force boat. So that is helping us a lot as well. Just recently, we saw that came to a head when we caught a migrant vessel with over a hundred persons on board.”
Up to November of this year 3488 illegal migrants and 27 illegal vessels have been seized in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
