(Source: Getty Images North America)
*President Trump has responded to the outrage over Bahamian survivors of Hurricane Dorian being kicked off ferry anchored in Freeport, Bahamas, that was bound for Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Sunday.
Hundreds of Hurricane Dorian survivors crowded into a ferry after days on the devastated islands with limited food, water and power. For many, their 2½ hour journey across the ocean to safety in Florida hit a wall when they were instructed to disembark.
“Please, all passengers that don’t have a U.S. visa, please proceed to disembark,” a crew member said in a video captured on board.
The incident comes amid bipartisan calls to waive all visa requirements for Bahamas survivors, per houstonchronicle.com.
“This is a humanitarian mission,” said acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan. “If your life is in jeopardy and you’re in the Bahamas . . . you’re going to be allowed to come to the United States, whether you have travel documents or not.”
But, he added: “We still need to vet you to make sure we’re not letting dangerous people in.”
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TURNED AWAY: Dorian survivors trying to escape devastation in the Bahamas were kicked off a ferry headed to Florida because they didn’t have U.S. visas.https://t.co/29MIf32DRq pic.twitter.com/U2yZIoXrSx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 9, 2019
Trump told reporters that authorities “have to be very careful” when letting people from the Bahamas into the United States: “Everybody needs totally proper documentation.”
“I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States – including some very bad people and very bad gang members,” he added.
On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she was “deeply disappointed” by Trump’s remarks and his “display of callous disregard for human suffering.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, it was a “business decision” by the ferry operator, identified by local reporters as Balearia Caribbean, to remove the refugees without visas, WSVN reports.
“They were not ordered off the boat by any U.S. government entity,” a CBP spokesman said in the interview.
“If those folks did stay on the boat and arrived, we would have processed them, vetted them and worked within our laws and protocols and done what we had to do to facilitate them,” the spokesman added.
I can’t express my disgust at this administration enough.
At the last minute a ferry bringing people from the Bahamas to the US was told everyone who doesn’t have a Visa must get off.
This in not normal protocol. You know why this is happening.
— Joshua Potash ? (@JoshuaPotash) September 9, 2019
But Balearia Caribbean said it had “the understanding” that the passengers could go to the U.S. without visas and only learned that wasn’t the case after they had boarded.
“We boarded these passengers with the understanding that they could travel to the United States without visas, only to later having been [be] advised that in order to travel to Ft. Lauderdale they required prior in-person authorization from the immigration authorities in Nassau,” a Balearia spokesman said in a statement sent to WSVN.
Sen. Rick Scott has urged CBP officials and the Bahamian government to clarify the current visa rules.
“As hundreds of thousands of Bahamians seek refuge or start to rebuild after Hurricane Dorian, we cannot have the kind of confusion that occurred last night in Freeport,” Scott said in a statement.
The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement issued Monday, said: “The U.S. Embassy in Nassau is open for emergency visa appointments and CBP Ports of Entry are prepared should Bahamians request to temporarily relocate to the United States.”
As reported by the Washington Post, “Under existing U.S. policy, Bahamians can enter the United States without a visa by providing a passport and proof of no criminal record and going through pre-screening conducted by CBP in Freeport and Nassau,” the publication writes.
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