Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis is set to meet with the Haitian Government at the end of this month to discuss the long vexing problem of immigration.

This was revealed yesterday by Press Secretary Anthony Newbold during the government’s weekly press briefing.

He added that immigration is the top priority on the Prime Minister’s agenda as he is set to travel to Haiti at the end of the month for the 29th inter sessional meeting of the heads of government for CARICOM.

“The meeting will attempt to deal with 19 substantive items on the agenda including disaster management and recovery, blacklisting and delisting tourism and the CLICO matter still before some countries.

“On the sidelines of that meeting the Prime Minister will engage the Haitian government on matters of concern to The Bahamas, primarily immigration and agriculture; of course with immigration holding the greatest priority,” Mr. Newbold said.

Since the start of the year, the Minnis administration’s strategy for ramped up efforts to apprehend illegal immigrants has been unclear with former Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell telling The Journal last month that nothing has changed.
Some Haitians in the Bahamas have said they have observed no increased activity and the pace of the department of immigration’s processing of applications has not improved.

Last month in its first apprehension of the year, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force arrested 70 Haitian nationals who were on board a 40ft sailing vessel off south Long Island.

The government last October gave all illegal migrants until December 31st of last year to leave the country.