Madam Speaker,
Each day that I rise in this Honourable House, I am grateful for the privilege of representing the good people of Cat Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador, and I am thankful for the work we do here, on behalf of all Bahamians, to grow our economy, to empower our people, and to promote, at all times, the security and the sovereignty of our nation.
As you know, our small island state is in reality also a big ocean state, covering more than a hundred thousand square miles.
The difficulty of detecting and policing criminal activity in these vast waters has been exploited for hundreds of years – think of the raiding and looting of Spanish ships in the 1700s, or rum-running during Prohibition in the United States, or later, a pipeline to move illicit drugs northward.
Today, criminal networks seek to profit from human suffering, by moving desperate men, women, and children, through these same maritime corridors.
The Bill we have before us, the Smuggling of Migrants Bill, 2025, targets these criminals directly.
This Bill makes it easier to prosecute smugglers, and punishes them with harsher penalties than ever before.
This is how we protect Bahamian communities on all of our islands.
This is how we rule our waters.
And this is how we reduce the number of migrants who enter our country.
Madam Speaker,
To our south, there are nations in severe distress, suffering serious political instability, food insecurity, violence, and the prospect of even further economic collapse.
Where we see tragedy, smugglers see a business opportunity, and transnational smuggling networks have become a big business.
This Bill makes it easier to prosecute and punish everyone involved.
The Bill strengthens our cooperation with our partners in the region.
It extends Bahamian jurisdiction so that offences connected to The Bahamas – as an origin, transit point or destination – can be prosecuted even when the smuggling activities take place outside our territorial waters or on foreign-flagged or stateless vessels.
We are telling smugglers:
If you use our waters, our islands, or our jurisdiction as part of your criminal enterprise, we will come after you – wherever you operate.
It doesn’t matter if you never stepped foot on a boat in our waters – if you organized this activity, if you coordinated or funded it, if it is your boat or plane in use, if you forged the documents – you are a criminal under this law.
Until now, our officers and prosecutors have had to piece together cases from provisions in the Penal Code, the Immigration Act, and other laws.
Smuggling rings require planning, financing, transportation, and harbouring. Yet our laws did not clearly define the chain of conduct as one offence with one set of strong penalties.
This Bill defines the smuggling of migrants as a crime distinct from immigration offences, and establishes that:
If you plan or organise the route, you can be charged.
If you provide the vessel or the aircraft, you can be charged.
If you supply false documents, you can be charged.
If you provide safe houses or transportation inside The Bahamas, you can be charged.
If you take payment at any point along the way, you can be charged.
This applies whether the migrants are bound for The Bahamas, passing through The Bahamas, or departing our islands for the United States or any other destination.
And if you are convicted, the consequences will be serious.
Fines up to three hundred thousand dollars.
Prison sentences up to fifteen years.
Confiscation of any vehicle or apparatus used in connection with those offences.
Madam Speaker,
This Bill was tabled on October 15th, many weeks ago, and the full text has been online since.
We have invited the legal community, civil society, and ordinary citizens to read it and share their views.
Some did so in good faith, and shared suggestions. My government took the concerns and recommendations shared seriously, as we always do.
In particular, there were concerns that the effect of some provisions might give migrants in our country illegally a new pathway to be here legally.
That was never the intention, and we had been given legal guidance that was not the case. But we believed it important to amend the bill so as to remove any doubts whatsoever on that point.
Where the Bill outlined the humane treatment of migrants, it simply described how our officers already behave now, in accordance with legal obligations and our morality and our faith. In our Christian faith, we are admonished in biblical terms how to treat strangers amongst us, and the obligations follow that admonition.
The issue of non-refoulement has been raised – this is about not deporting migrants back into serious harm.
This is nothing new – this is a moral and legal obligation that our law enforcement officials already follow – by deporting Haitians, for example, to locations outside of Port au Prince.
Under this government, we have carried out more than 13,000 repatriations, so we know of what we speak.
I believe that is a record, Madam Speaker.
In 2022, our administration repatriated four thousand seven hundred and forty-eight migrants.
In 2023, that figure rose to four thousand nine hundred and fifty four.
By the middle of this year, the Minister of National Security was able to report that about thirteen thousand migrants had been repatriated in less than four years.
At the same time, the number of detainees at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre has fallen dramatically, at points to just a few dozen.
That is what happens when a government insists that all who are detained must be processed and returned quickly, instead of allowing numbers to build up and conditions to deteriorate.
These accomplishments are the result of efficient operations, stronger coordination between agencies, and investments in the tools required to intercept migrant vessels before they reach Bahamian shores.
We have invested millions in strengthening the Royal Bahamas Defence Force by refitting the HMBS Durward Knowles, introducing new patrol vessels, investing in repairs and upgrades for air surveillance, and building out our monitoring capacity through ongoing efforts to install new radars, allowing us to monitor our entire nation.
Madam Speaker,
We have time and again demonstrated our seriousness on this issue.
We have substantial investments in new technology, in surveillance and enforcement assets, in robust recruitment and professional training, and in strengthening critical partnerships.
In 2022, at the Summit of the Americas, we were under pressure to sign a declaration signed by 20 nations in our region, agreeing to accept more migrants.
We refused.
Our first duty is to our citizens and to those who are here lawfully.
Later, the United Nations called on countries to suspend deportations to Haiti – and we refused that as well.
So this bill builds on a very strong and very clear record of protecting our waters, and our people, and our sovereignty.
What this Bill does is straightforward.
It defines smuggling.
It sets out who can be charged.
It establishes serious penalties.
It preserves every power this country already has to arrest, detain, and repatriate persons who breach our laws.
Madam Speaker,
We have invested millions in strengthening the Defence Force’s communications systems and over one million dollars more in drones to aid with monitoring and patrolling.
We also expanded manpower by hiring hundreds of Immigration and Defence Force officers.
Since the start of this year, we have already held multiple recruitment cycles for Immigration Officers.
In fact, a recruitment cycle is happening right now, and I encourage any patriotic young Bahamians who are interested to apply.
As we’ve built up manpower within Immigration, we’ve also recruited over 570 Defence Force marines to patrol and protect our borders.
Madam Speaker,
If you want fewer migrants in The Bahamas, this Bill helps achieve that because it targets the criminal networks that organise illegal routes.
If you want smugglers to face long prison sentences and heavy fines, this Bill delivers that.
If you want the Defence Force to stop suspicious vessels at sea with clear legal backing, this Bill provides that.
If you want to protect young Bahamians from being drawn into smuggling as an easy way to make money, this Bill strengthens the hand of law enforcement to intervene and prosecute.
Madam Speaker,
We are tackling complex immigration issues from multiple angles.
The progress has been promising.
But we also know that there is still a lot of work left to do.
We’ve seen record highs for repatriations, record lows for landfalls and detention centre occupancy, and record action on shantytowns.
By many measures, we have done a better job in the past four years of protecting our borders than many larger and wealthier nations.
Today, we add to that record – by sending a clear message:
If you are participating in or supporting human smuggling in any way, you will find yourself within the crosshairs of our justice system.
You will be held accountable for the damage you have done to our nation by facilitating the illegal entrance of migrants within our borders.
Study this law.
Look at the fines.
Look at the prison terms.
Look at the way it treats everyone in the chain, from planner to transporter to landlord.
If you continue, you will be taking a very serious risk with your freedom, your family, and your assets.
To any Bahamian who believes it is harmless to rent out rooms to people not here legally, to provide vehicles for their movement, or to lend a boat for a weekend trip that you know, in your heart, is illegal, I say this is a turning point.
What might have felt like a side income will now carry consequences that can change your life.
To migrants themselves, I say: do not place your lives, or the lives of your children, in the hands of criminals.
They will take your money, put you on an overloaded vessel, and send you into open water with little regard for whether you survive. If you come here in breach of our laws, you will be returned to your country of origin.
The law of the land with respect to all undocumented migrants will continue to stand firm.
Being a victim of human smuggling doesn’t give anyone a right to stay here.
Our asylum rules remain unchanged.
Anyone stating otherwise is attempting to use scare tactics to stir up anger at a time when the public deserves truth instead of fear.
Madam Speaker,
The migration surges caused by economic and security crises in other countries continues to drive illegal entry into our country and is a very, very serious problem.
It is one we have chosen to face head-on, with a National Policy Framework.
We have a clear plan for irregular migrants and shantytowns.
We have Operation Secure and a sustained Defence Force presence at sea.
We have overseen record levels of repatriation.
We chose to see court challenges through to the end and we continue to demolish shantytowns.
We now choose to strengthen the law against smugglers and those who help them.
This is how our small island, big ocean state is leading the way.
Our responsibility is to hold the line for The Bahamas.
To protect the security of our borders.
To guard the cohesion of our communities.
To uphold the rule of law.
And to show compassion without surrendering control.
Madam Speaker,
I thank the Minister of National Security, the Attorney General, and the Minister of Immigration and National Insurance, as well as their teams, for their leadership on this issue.
I must also express my gratitude to the men and women of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force and the Department of Immigration who work every day to protect this country and its borders.
Their efforts have truly made a difference.
This administration remains committed to supporting them in successfully carrying out their mandate.
Today, through the Smuggling of Migrants Bill 2025, we have provided further support to our men and women on the front lines.
And we are sending a clear message to those who engage in human smuggling and other illegal forms of migration:
We will not allow criminal networks to use our islands as corridors.
We will not allow lawlessness to challenge the safety and stability of our communities.
We will not tolerate the exploitation of vulnerable people.
And we will not compromise our sovereignty.
I commend this Bill to this Honourable House and to the nation.