the Bahamian Constitution, nor any of The Bahamas’ Acts addressing nationality—such as Chapter 190/Bahamas Nationality Act and Chapter 191/Immigration Act—specifically target Haitian migrants or their descendants when it comes to the acquisition of Bahamian citizenship. The qualified nature of the jus sanguinis and jus soli provisions of the Constitution applies equally to all persons born of noncitizens on the territory.
Nationality acquisition is qualified in the following ways: a child born in The Bahamas may only become a Bahamian citizen if one of his or her parents is a Bahamian citizen (Government of The Bahamas 1973a, Article 6). This Article is not specific to any particular race or ethnicity. Those individuals born in the country, neither of whose parents is a Bahamian citizen, are permitted to apply for Bahamian citizenship through registration within twelve months of turning eighteen (Article 7), but there is no guarantee they will obtain Bahamian citizenship. As a former Free National Movement (FNM) official makes clear, “it’s not an automatic entitlement.”7 Statelessness is therefore a possibility if the child does not possess another nationality. Those who miss the eighteen- to nineteen-year-old application window must go through the regular naturalization procedure, a more involved, time-consuming, and costly process than registration. It is of note that being born in The Bahamas does not provide any benefit in expediting the naturalization process for those who miss the one-year registration window. As an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) makes clear, “The fact that the individual was born in The Bahamas has no bearing on the application for naturalization” (italics added).8
The Bahamian Constitution states that only the governor-general is able to deprive a Bahamian national of citizenship (Government of The Bahamas 1973a, Article 11), but adds that Parliament has powers to deprive and bestow citizenship on persons by means that are not addressed in the Constitution (Article 13). Chapter 190/Bahamas Nationality Act (1973b) provides more extensive details regarding the acquisition and loss of Bahamian citizenship and also discusses the provision of nationality to non-Bahamian adopted children and minors generally. It details the reasons for loss of Bahamian citizenship, which include acquiring Bahamian citizenship through fraudulent means, committing a crime within five years of obtaining said citizenship, or demonstrating disloyalty to the country, among other criteria, if a naturalized citizen or a citizen via registration (Article 11.2). Again, in none of these cases are individuals of Haitian descent—or of any other particular ethnicity—specifically targeted.
What is of note is that the Nationality Act provides extraordinary leeway and power to the minister in charge of naturalization and immigration, which today falls under the portfolio of the minister of foreign affairs. In a thirteen-page act, not including the final two pages that deal with schedules of different types, the phrase “the Minister may at his discretion” appears ten times. The minister may thus grant and revoke citizenship at his or her discretion, often without having to confer with any other governmental body. Even when the minister is supposed to refer a case of citizenship deprivation to a “committee of inquiry,” which then recommends whether or not said deprivation should take place, the minister is under no obligation “to act upon or in accordance with any such recommendation” (Article 11.8). Moreover, any decision of the minister regarding citizenship acquisition or deprivation is not subject to judicial review:
The Minister shall not be required to assign any reason for the grant or refusal of any application or the making of any order under this Act the decision upon which is at his discretion; and the decision of the Minister on any such application or order shall not be subject to appeal or review in any court. (Article 16)
In practice, however, questions regarding the grant of citizenship are typically performed by cabinet, which consists of the ministers of the executive branch of government, and not by the minister “in charge of naturalization and immigration.” As one former minister of the FNM government explains, a citizenship application “goes before Cabinet, and Cabinet considers it” or the citizenship application goes to the minister of foreign affairs who “prepare[s] a Cabinet brief” and then sends that brief to cabinet to consider.9 The entire cabinet then decides on the basis of consensus whether to grant or deny citizenship to an individual. Alfred Sears, former attorney general of The Bahamas (2002–2006) and former minister of education, science, and technology under the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) administration admits that such a procedure often “takes up a lot of cabinet time” because each application is dealt with individually, making it a “cumbersome” process.10 It remains, however, that these cabinet citizenship decisions are not subject to judicial review. As I illustrate, this is highly problematic given that the practice of granting Bahamian citizenship is highly politicized and fraught with bureaucratic inconsistencies.
The Political Context
In “Client-Ship and Citizenship in Latin America,” Lucy Taylor explains how clientelistic practices and charismatic leaders have shaped Latin American politics. Clientelism, she explains, “is not about equality but inequality … it is not about rights but about favours … it is not about democracy but about negotiated authoritarianism … [and] Finally, it is not about formal relationships but personal ties” (2004, 214). Her comments are applicable to the broader region, including the Caribbean. While The Bahamas is far from being an authoritarian state—as I explain in Chapter 1, it is considered a democracy—favoritism and the use of personal ties (cronyism) to achieve a particular good or political gain has plagued much of its post-Independence history, infiltrating the realm of citizenship determination.
Sir Lynden O. Pindling, the individual who led the country to Independence and who became the country’s first prime minister, is heralded as the “Black Moses” among many Bahamians. “I just remember people worshiping him.… He was always this grand myth to me,” says Travolta Cooper, the writer and director of the “Black Moses” documentary on Sir Pindling (Nicolls 2013). Sir Pindling’s PLP government, which lasted twenty-five years (1967–1992) was accused of corruption and cronyism from many sectors of society, both Bahamian and abroad (Dahlburg 1982; Freedland 1992). As Frederick Donathan explains, “The government’s tentacles spread very far.… You got accustomed to thinking, ‘I better vote for the old regime, in case they get in again’” (qtd. in Freedland 1992). When Hubert A. Ingraham, the then leader of the opposition FNM became the second prime minister of The Bahamas in 1992 he vowed to create a “government in the sunshine” where transparency and fairness would reign (Freedland 1992; see also I. Smith 2012).
A “government in the sunshine” never transpired, however, and accusations of corruption and cronyism continue to the present day. The PLP is once again in power and former prime minister Ingraham recently lambasted the party for “victimising” civil servants and removing them from their jobs because they are not PLP supporters (Evans 2012). Current FNM leader, Dr. Hubert Minnis recently published a statement on the PLP government’s “Unadulterated tribalism, cronyism and out-and-out nepotism!” (Bahamas Weekly 2012 n. pag.). The PLP has also issued its fair share of corruption and cronyism accusations against FNM administrations as well (S. Brown 2013).
Just as Taylor finds that a “goods-for-power” deal operates in many Latin American countries, wherein “People support a certain patron because they gamble that to do so will improve their own or their family’s prospects” (2004, 215), Bahamian politics seems to be infused with such a mentality. When it comes to Haitian migrants and their descendants, the “good” is citizenship and no matter the party in power (PLP or FNM) this good suddenly becomes more readily available prior to a general election.
Study participants, Haitian and non-Haitian alike, remark that the number of citizenships awarded to foreigners escalates around election time. As one anonymous interviewee laments, “There’s the issue of the politics of citizenship in terms of who gets it. How is it awarded? It’s a cabinet decision—there is just so much room for abuse, with so much room for timing it to coincide with elections. It’s a seriously flawed approach.”11 Gwendolyn Brice-Adderley,
