24409: (news) Chamberlain: Bahamas rounds up 230 illegal immigrants (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     NASSAU, Bahamas, March 3 (Reuters) - Police in the Bahamas have
rounded up 208 Haitians and 22 Jamaicans as part of efforts to clear the
country of illegal immigrants.
     The migrants, rounded up in raids in the capital on Wednesday, face
deportation from the Bahamas, an island chain on the northwestern edge of
the Caribbean with a population of about 300,000.
     "We will have sustained exercises until all the immigrants, no matter
where they are from, are picked up and repatriated," Labor and Immigration
Minister Vincent Peet said.
     Eugene Newry, Bahamas ambassador to Haiti, echoed the minister's
remarks, saying: "If anyone is illegal in the Bahamas they should be
rounded up and sent home because there is a proper way of coming into the
country."
     More than 3,000 illegal immigrants were deported in 2004. This year,
nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants have been detained in the Bahamas. The
majority were repatriated to Haiti, where political turmoil and desperate
poverty have pushed thousands of people to take to sea to try to make a
better life abroad.
     The Bahamas enjoys relative prosperity compared to some of its
Caribbean neighbors.