Statelessness in the Caribbean. Kristy A. Belton

      ^*Name changed to protect anonymity, as per interviewee’s request.

      ^aDolce says, “I think I applied at 18,” but is unsure as he “wasn’t kind of interested anymore” because of the way the Department of Immigration was treating him at the time. He admits, however, that “at a certain point you say, ‘Listen here, okay, I am going to do it.’ You have to comply and complain afterwards.”

      ^bDumercy began the process at eighteen but due to a number of complications submitted her application three days after she turned nineteen. As a result, she had to begin the process again, but under a new procedure—naturalization—with additional requirements and costs since she had missed the one year window in which to apply via registration.

      As illustrated in Table 2, most Bahamian-born participants of noncitizen parents waited several years to hear back from the Department of Immigration on their citizenship application. Desmangles believes this is not uncommon. He thinks maybe one out of a hundred applicants will acquire their citizenship three to six months after they apply for it, but the other “99 of them, they’re gonna have to wait until five years to get it.” Ambassador Rodrigue notes that if a person applies for citizenship after the one-year mark beginning at age eighteen then “It can take up to 12 years. I’ve had people say they were waiting for 12 years. It can take 5 years, 8 years, 10 years. Because now you are going through another type of process. Between 18 and 19, it’s like almost a natural or normal process to get it. But after 18, after 19, I don’t know.”²⁵

      While in Nassau, I was able to read an award of citizenship letter from the Bahamian government that was dated May 21, 2012. The person to whom the letter was addressed had applied for Bahamian citizenship on May 2, 1997. It took a decade and a half for the Department of Immigration to make a decision on that individual’s application.²⁶ Whether or not this is an example of an extreme situation, Marie St. Cecile, born in The Bahamas to Haitian parents, remarks that her parents were able to acquire Bahamian citizenship before she did. St. Cecile did not apply for Bahamian citizenship at eighteen because “I basically didn’t know that I should, that you should apply at 18 at that time. So I applied late.”²⁷ She adds that she thought that “once I applied, I would automatically get it because of my age and all that stuff,” but that this was not the case. She had to wait eight years for the Bahamian government to give her citizenship and, in that time, her Haitian-born parents obtained Bahamian citizenship: