Haiti – Turks and Caicos Islands: Decrease in maritime interceptions of illegal Haitian migrants

Haiti – Turks and Caicos Islands: Decrease in maritime interceptions of illegal Haitian migrants
03/07/2024 10:52:05

So far this year, there has been a significant drop in the number of migrants intercepted attempting to enter illegally from Haiti in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Deputy police chief Mat Newton told a news conference at police headquarters that 4,016 illegal immigrants from Haiti were intercepted last year, compared to 865 (727 men, 138 women, including eight minors) in 10 separate interceptions in the first six months of this year.

Newton noted: “It’s fair to say that there will be some ships coming through, but I think the bottom line here is that we’re having incredible success in intercepting these irregular migrants. Secondly, the OPBAT partnership, which many of you will be familiar with, is more successful in terms of intelligence sharing and having to demonstrate situational awareness and there’s better coordination within the OPBAT partnership to ensure that we’re deploying all of our air and sea assets effectively.”

Newton also confirmed that infrastructure work for the new maritime radar has begun and that it will be ready for deployment within four weeks. He said the radar, funded by the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office, will increase the ability to detect migrant boats…

Finally, he said: “The investigations into the facilitators have been particularly effective over the last three months, in cooperation with the Border Police. We now have a number of individuals in custody on some quite serious charges and we will be pursuing those who are facilitating this.”

“We believe that there is also a certain degree of transnational organised crime in this context. We are digging deeper to see if we can identify the individuals who, in my view, are riding on the coattails of human trafficking for personal gain. We are really trying to identify this and bring those individuals to justice,” he said.

S/ HaitiLibre