NASSAU, BAHAMAS — The government will have to review and discuss what it will do with the draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, said Minister of Immigration Keith Bell yesterday.
The bill was initially drafted by the Law Reform Commission, headed by Dame Anita Allen, in 2018 and has since undergone at least three draft versions.
The bill would repeal the Bahamas Nationality Act and the Immigration Act and also outlines provisions for migrants seeking asylum in the country.
Addressing the matter outside the House of Assembly, Bell said that he’s already been in communication with Dame Anita and her team and intends to meet with her to go through the entire bill.
“Once we do that we will have to consider taking it back to Cabinet to ensure Cabinet approves it in its form as it is and we go from there,” he said.
Seeking to address long-standing issues surrounding statelessness and the right to pass on citizenship, the proposed legislation puts forth sweeping changes to the country’s immigration law
Under the first draft of the bill, anyone born in The Bahamas after July 9, 1973 to non-Bahamian parents and who does not apply for citizenship before by their 19th birthday would lose the right to apply for citizenship.
Additionally, the bill would have given individuals who fall under that category six months after the law takes effect to apply for some form of status or risk being deported.
Provisions under the draft legislation would also establish a “right of abode” in The Bahamas for anyone born in the country to foreign parents while they are a minor.
Former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis had continuously touted that his administration would make changes to the law to address the controversial matter of women being able to pass on their citizenship to foreign-born children.
The Court of Appeal recently upheld a historic Supreme Court ruling that children born out of wedlock to foreign women and Bahamian men are entitled to citizenship at birth.
The government had sought to appeal a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder handed down last May over the true interpretation of Article 6 of the Constitution.
Then-Attorney General Carl Bethel said the matter would be taken to the Privy Council.
Upon coming into office, now Attorney General Ryan Pinder advised that the government has to discuss whether it will still go to the Privy Council to appeal a Court of Appeal ruling that children born out of wedlock to foreign women and Bahamian men are entitled to citizenship at birth.
Minister of National Security and Freetown MP Wayne Munroe, QC, represented the five applicants in the matter in his private legal practice.
