The Haitian community is the largest migrant group in The Bahamas comprising some 50% of all migrants (Department of Statistics, 2002). In addition, it is widely accepted that Haitian migration is disorderly which has resulted in many members of the Haitian community residing illegally in the country. As a result, these migrants have been the focus of much discussion in the media and by politicians.
Despite this interest, Marshall's study of 1979 is the most recent report which addresses patterns of travel by Haitian nationals to The Bahamas. The media typically reports Haitian migrants attempting to reach The Bahamas in leaking boats and on the health of the passengers. Until the end of May of 2003 The Bahamas government had spent $400,000 dollars in returning illegal Haitian nationals to the Republic of Haiti (Poitier, 2003). From this fact alone, it is clear that the movement of Haitian nationals to The Bahamas is of economic as well as social importance.
The lack of research on the Haitian community has resulted in many claims being made in the press by "concerned" contributors which have fuelled anti-Haitian sentiment within the country (for example, Watkins, 2005). This has resulted in Haitian nationals being stigmatised (Fielding, Ballance, Scriven, MacDonald & Johnson, 2006). In an effort to obtain to current knowledge on the Haitian migration, a study of the Haitian community was conducted in the summer of 2005. The results in this paper focus on the pathway of Haitian migrants to The Bahamas and their subsequent movement between the countries.
The target population for this study were adults (aged 18 or over) who (a) had official documents confirming that they were Haitian nationals or (b) were without official documents but of Haitian ethnicity. Haitian nationals who had renounced their citizenship were not included because they are now Bahamian citizens. People born in The Bahamas to Haitian parents were included in the study even though they may have applied for, but not yet received, an official determination about Bahamian citizenship.
The Haitian community was engaged in the study at the start through a meeting at the Haitian Embassy with many leaders of the Haitian community. The purpose of the meeting was to obtain the community leaders' support for the study and to explain the motives for the research. Interviewers were Creole speakers and in almost every case of ethnic Haitian origin and who were in some cases also gatekeepers. Confidentiality of the participants was stressed at all stages and participants were allowed to leave any question unanswered. Participants were told of a guarantee given by the Department of Immigration that no one would be "targeted" as a result of being interviewed, even though the usual enforcement practices would continue. Where possible, gatekeepers were contacted who allowed data collectors access to their communities and encouraged the community to participate.
The 2000 Census was used to determine the relative sizes of the Haitian community in The Bahamas. The four islands of New Providence, Grand Bahama, Abaco and Eleuthera accounted for 98% of the Haitian community in the 2000 Census, and so by focusing the study on these islands few Haitian communities would be expected to be excluded.
As a consequence of being able to refuse to answer questions, not all the survey forms were completed. Where questions only related to a subset of respondents, values for N indicate the number of people who actually provided information. The incomplete nature of the forms can also result in apparent inconsistencies in related questions.
Missing values have been included when calculating percentages, so percentages represent minimum figures. SE refers to the standard error of the mean and indicates the level of variability associated with the mean. The median (the value occupying the mid-point of the ordered data, 50% of the observations being above and below this value) is given when observations are skewed about the mean, i.e. when it is a more useful measure of "average" than the mean.
Responses from 506 members of the Haitian community were obtained. The number of interviews was almost proportionate to the size of the Haitian community on each island; 361 in New Providence, 60 in Abaco, 58 in Grand Bahama and 27 in Eleuthera.
Some respondents who had been born in The Bahamas had also lived in Haiti and so 93.7% of respondents had lived (not including visits) in Haiti.
Most migrants came from the north-west of Haiti but not exclusively. With migrants leaving by air from Port-au-Prince, residents from the south of Haiti are now migrating to The Bahamas. The last place of residence in Haiti of respondents is given in Table 1.
Table 1: Place of last residence in Haitian of migrants before arriving in The Bahamas
| Last place of residence | % |
| La Pointe | 30.6% |
| Lafond | 15.8% |
| Rivière des Nègres | 12.2% |
| Cap-Haïtien | 10.9% |
| La Croix St Joseph | 9.2% |
| Port Salut | 9.0% |
| All others | 12.3% |
| N = | 468 |
Port-au-Prince is now an important port of embarkation for migrants due to the popularity of air travel. Those leaving by boat still leave from ports situated in the north-west (Table 2). One migrant arrived via Miami which shows that indirect travel routes are also available to migrants.
Table 2: Port of embarkation for Haitian nationals migrating to The Bahamas
| Port of embarkation | % |
| Cap-Haïtien | 33.3% |
| La Tortue | 29.0% |
| Port-de-Paix | 27.6% |
| Port-au-Prince | 6.9% |
| All others | 3.2% |
| N = | 435 |
Most migrants came to New Providence before going to their current island of residence. Relatively few respondents went directly to any other island on which they presently live. Major ports of entry into The Bahamas were Nassau International Airport (26.2%) and docks along the north coast of New Providence, close to or in Nassau (24.4%). Others (31.8%) landed at other locations on New Providence. The ability of migrants to identify their first point of arrival may be fallible, so while these responses should be treated with caution, the evidence still supports the Nassau-centric hypothesis of Haitian migration.
Table 3: Pattern of migration within The Bahamas, percentage of all respondents (N=440). Figures in bold indicate direct entry to current island
| Current island on which respondent lives | ||||||
| Abaco | Eleuthera | Grand Bahama | New Providence | Total | ||
| Islands passed through to reach current island |
Abaco | 0.5% | 0.2% | 0.7% | ||
| Bimini | 0.2% | 0.2% | ||||
| Cat Island | 0.2% | 0.2% | ||||
| Eleuthera | 0.2% | 0.7% | 0.9% | |||
| Exuma | 0.2% | 1.1% | 1.3% | |||
| Grand Bahama | 4.8% | 0.5% | 5.3% | |||
| Inagua | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 1.1% | ||
| New Providence | 10.5% | 3.9% | 4.5% | 71.4% | 90.3% | |
| Total | 10.9% | 4.1% | 10.5% | 74.6% | ||
The process of migration is a solitary one, with most respondents (56%) travelling alone and 24% travelling with strangers, Table 4. Very few respondents came with their employer which suggests that most came with the expectation of finding work after arriving.
Table 4: Nature of companions while migrating (excludes those born in The Bahamas)
| Companion on trip | % |
| On my own or alone | 55.8% |
| With others whom I did not know | 23.5% |
| With friends | 6.1% |
| With family members | 5.4% |
| My parents brought me | 4.1% |
| My employer | 0.9% |
| N = | 450 |
Most respondents (57.9%) had first arrived by boat and 32.3% had come by air. Of the 143 respondents who arrived by boats, which were not their own, 31 (22%) also described the boats as "commercial", Table 5. This suggests these boats also have commercial uses. Air is now the mode of choice of migrants; respondents who had arrived by boat had first arrived seven years ago compared with five years ago if arriving by air (Median test: Chi-square = 15.3, df = 1, n = 411, p = 0.002).
Table 5: Mode of travel used by respondents on the first trip from Haiti to The Bahamas
| Mode of transport | % | N |
| Someone else's boat | 37.5% | 394 |
| Commercial boat | 32.7% | 396 |
| Commercial airplane | 31.2% | 459 |
| Private airplane | 1.1% | 366 |
| Own boat | 1.1% | 365 |
There was no real difference in the cost of sea (median: $480, minimum: $0, maximum: $6,000) or air passages (median: $600, minimum: $0, maximum: $10,000 (Median test; df=1, Chi-squared=0.248, p=0.62), and the range in sea and air fares indicates the earning which traffickers in illegal migrants can make.
Once in The Bahamas, 40.7% of respondents (204) travelled back to the Republic of Haiti. Of these respondents, most (47.1%) went back "occasionally" and another 27.9% returned once a year. The most common reasons for returning were to visit relatives (66.7% of 204 replies) and to take back money and food (12.7%). The most common mode of travel back to Haiti was commercial aeroplane (79.9%) but some also returned by sea (3%). The cost of returning to Haiti by air varied between $150 and $3,000, with a median of $425.
The study findings only relate to the Haitian community members who participated and extrapolation to the wider community must be done with caution as there is no guarantee that the respondents were representative of the wider Haitian community. We must also be aware that some respondents might not have responded truthfully due to the sensitive nature of the investigation.
Migrants continue to come from north-west Haiti but the catchment area is larger than in the 1960s (Marshall, 1979). This change is corroborated by data collected at the Embassy of the Republic of Haiti on the place of birth of Haitian passport holders in The Bahamas (Rolle, 2005).
New Providence is the hub for migration (90.3% of migrants first arrived here), Table 3. Some migrants travelled directly to Grand Bahama but none appeared to travel directly to Abaco. (One respondent was detained in Nassau while attempting to fly to Abaco.) This may be because Grand Bahama is a point of departure/stop-over for flow-through migrants en route from Haiti to North America.
Respondents arrived on flights from Haiti at Nassau International airport and others by "commercial" boats in New Providence, so making New Providence the focus of arrivals. The fact that migrants who had arrived by air had been in the country a shorter time than those who arrived by sea could be interpreted as air being the travel mode of choice of recent migrants. This may be a result from there being no real difference in travel costs by sea or air. Migrants may arrive as "passengers" or "crew" on boats which have been cleared by officials outside of New Providence; this would explain why respondents could arrive at docks in Nassau. It would appear that commercial boats also smuggle migrants so this would suggest that officials need to screen such boats for this activity.
Travelling by air between Haiti and The Bahamas costs approximately $480; this is reasonably close to the median air fare paid by migrants. This indicates that many migrants arrive legitimately on a return ticket, but others can pay surcharges which presumably allow officials at each port to facilitate their illegal movement. It should be noted that newspaper reports focus on arrivals by sea (for example, Thompson, 2002). Consequently, the attention of the public, and presumably that of the authorities, is focused on sea, rather than air arrivals. Boat captains using the less well regulated sea routes charge fees which compete with the airfare and this would make it profitable to smuggle migrants to augment legitimate trade. Smuggling just one person per trip to The Bahamas may add greatly to their profits. As with other migrant groups, captains can earn substantial sums through illegal trafficking (Missick, 2002).
The sizes of the Haitian migrant communities on Abaco and Grand Bahama are similar: migrants did not travel directly to Abaco but did so to Grand Bahama. This suggests that there is an onward route from Grand Bahama to North America, but not from Abaco. It is possible that the Haitian community in Grand Bahama has resulted from migrants who were unable to get onward passages.
Although migrants came alone, almost as many came in unrelated groups. Migrants, who arrive by air with a visa, start a paper trail which should be followed in order to ensure that, like some in this study, they do not over-stay their permitted time. The arrival of migrants in tourist areas suggests that monitoring may be hampered by the cover provided by legitimate visitors. Officers need to be equally aware of single as well as group arrivals of migrants.
Once migrants are established, they are able to return home regularly by aeroplane. This legitimate travel helps to mask the arrival of Haitian nationals who wish to remain even though they may not have permission. In order to successfully combat illegal migration at the airport, more sophisticated tracking and documentation of "visitors" may be required such as that now employed by the United States of America. Permits provided by the authorities may need to become machine readable and more sophisticated so as to make forgeries more difficult. However, such procedures may not be welcome by tourists.
This study was funded by the International Organisation for Migration as part of its technical assistance programme to The Bahamas. The authors are grateful to the cooperation of His Excellency H. Joseph, Ambassador of the Republic of Haiti in The Bahamas.
Department of Statistics. (2002). Report of the 2000 census of population & housing. Nassau: Author.
Fielding, W.J., Ballance, V., Scriven, C., MacDonald, T. & Johnson, P. (2006). The stigma of being "Haitian" in the Bahamas. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Marshall, D.I. (1979). The Haitian problem: Illegal migration to the Bahamas. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies.
Missick, R. (2002, August 9). Bahamas' role in refugee smuggling ring is exposed. The Tribune, p. 3A.
Poitier, K. (2003, May 28). The Haitian dilemma. The Nassau Guardian. p. A3. Retrieved March 17, 2006, from http://archive.nassauguardian.net.
Rolle, K. (2005, February 28). Plans to monitor Haitian migration. The Tribune, p. 1, 15.
Thompson, XX. (2002, August 10). Interrogation can solve refugee problem. The Tribune. P. 3.
© William J. Fielding, Virginia Ballance, Carol Scriven, Thaddeus MacDonald & Pandora Johnson, 2006.
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