(Statement) The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) notes with great interest Prime Minister Perry Christie’s statement on immigration enforcement to heads of state at the Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama.

We are in total agreement with Mr. Christie’s assessment that human trafficking is a sophisticated criminal enterprise that threatens the national security of The Bahamas, as is the case for many nations around the world. This is precisely why we have said, from the outset, that any effective immigration policy must start at the border.

Human smugglers are in the business of transporting people into sovereign national territories without the proper permission. It follows that in order to deal with this most vexing issue, you must attack the problem at its source, cutting off the trafficking routes and intercepting and prosecute the perpetrators.

Considering our common perspective, GBHRA finds it curious that the Prime Minister would defend his government’s current immigration enforcement policy so strongly. The policy is quite clearly not focused on protecting the border, interrupting trafficking rings, or detaining the smugglers themselves.

Instead, it focuses on high profile raids, round-ups and roadblocks, targeting established communities where Bahamians, documented and undocumented migrants, and individuals of Haitian descent have lived shoulder to shoulder for many years.

From a national security perspective, the government’s approach makes no sense at all. It is the equivalent of trying to fight the drug trade by attacking whole residential neighborhoods where some drug users may or may not live, harassing and terrifying innocent and guilty alike, instead of going after the drug dealers and drug smugglers themselves.

The government has made much of the fact that human trafficking can be big business for the perpetrators. It is unlikely, therefore, that many of them are forced to live in local shanty towns.

This is why the GBHRA has repeatedly said, since November 1, 2014, that the current policy will never solve the problem of undocumented immigration. Indeed, we believe it was never intended to resolve the problem. Rather, it aimed at creating the mere illusion of meaningful action on an issue of public concern, in a bid to revive the PLP’s waning political support. From the start, the policy was all show, no substance.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell continuously points to the high rate of public support for the policy, as if The Bahamas is governed by mass rule, rather than law and order.

If the government really wants to end undocumented immigration, they should go after the networks of human smugglers, not communities where women and children live.

While the Christie administration is engaged in this ineffectual public relations stunt, the border remains porous and undocumented persons continue to arrive on our shores. The government’s approach is like trying to bail out a sinking boat with a spoon, without first plugging the gaping crack in the hull.

Meanwhile, the real tragedy of this dubious exercise is being felt by average people – Bahamians and migrants, whether documented or undocumented – who are seeing their fundamental, constitutionally protected rights violated at every turn.

For the benefit of Mr. Christie, we repeat what we have said many times in response to Minister Mitchell’s attempts to defend this policy: raids and round-ups are illegal in The Bahamas; the setting up of road check-points for searches is illegal in The Bahamas; the denial of due process to any person detained by law enforcement –including the right to apply for bail, the right to an attorney, the presumption of innocence and the right to sentenced or punished only after conviction – is illegal in The Bahamas.

Once again, we take this opportunity to urge Prime Minister Christie and his colleagues to cease from promulgating this unlawful, unconstitutional policy. We implore him to live up to his words in Panama and concentrate law enforcement efforts at the border to fight the scourge of human trafficking, while implementing a system to identify undocumented migrants already in the country that is efficient, transparent, lawful and humane.

• Fred Smith, QC, president Grand Bahama Human Rights Association