By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, December 11, 2021 – “We’re moving from the defense to the offense. We want to find the people responsible for this trade and we want them in our prisons serving long sentences.”

Less than two weeks after the latest, deadly migrant mishap Governor Nigel Dakin has rolled out a brand new border defense plan for the Turks and Caicos Islands in concert with the Bahamas and the United States.

The plan sees major upgrades for personnel and equipment across the TCI and new partnerships to seal the deal.

Governor Dakin laid out four things he said the Turks and Caicos had to do in order to effectively man their borders. These were: Creating circles of defense that would allow the alliance to intercept vessels before they touched shore; to have surveillance good enough to detect and stop before they reached TCI waters; to take down the networks that facilitate the activities and finally to decrease what he called ‘Pull factors’ that make the TCI seem so attractive to irregular migrants.

“I and the NSC have to live in the real world, not the world we would wish it to be, and we have to be realistic that the push factors out of Haiti are not going to reduce any time soon.  The trend is the opposite way. We in TCI have to be in charge of our destiny, not the victim of others. What is entirely within our personal gift is we can reduce the pull factors that bring irregular migrants to our shores,” said the Governor in a Thursday press conference to announce the new tri-lateral strategy, held from the Governor’s Office in Providenciales.

In order to achieve these objectives the Governor announced Plans for Land, Air and Sea, combined with the US, Bahamas agreement it is a threefold partnership in every sense of the word.

In an effort to protect land and sea the Governor announced the consolidation of the Maritime Police and the Radar Operation into a new Maritime base.  This base which will start operating on April 1st. will include a Maritime Operations Control Center for the units and will be able to assist officers stationed at sea.

“So as an interim step, the Government has committed to building a new Marine Base and within that there will be a Maritime Operations Control Facility that will fuse all activity working in support of this mission.  As part of the journey, a decision was made by the NSC last week that the Radar Operation – that now does so much more than just irregular migration – will move from the Ministry of Immigration to the Maritime Police bringing two first class, but separate units together, to ensure maximum collaboration. That will happen on 1 April.”

But that was not all, the ranks of the Maritime Police force is set to grow to nearly double what it stands at now and benefit from two new boats.

The scope of the radar is set to triple with the help of new equipment.

“As our radar becomes ever more comprehensive, we risk becoming a victim of our own success and we may have many more sightings of suspicious craft. How we best resolve if these are ‘friend or foe’ depends on the increase in numbers that the radar see – we don’t necessarily want the Maritime Police having to intercept each one which would be inefficient. So the NSC has not ruled out investing in fixed wing drone technology to complement our radar activity if that becomes necessary, and the NSC has received some preparatory briefing on this.”

The TCI Regiment is also set to increase in number and will be operating on land and sea by 2023. The TCI regiment will be trained by British Military officers and are set to have actual barracks soon.

“As promised the Regiment has been formed and was stood up during the pandemic. It has a presence in both Grand Turk and Providenciales.  It’s already operational and gaining plaudits for its support to counter-migration work from the Minister of Immigration. It’s staffed by brilliant committed people, regular and reserve alike, and it will grow year-on-year over the next two years to be around 100 Marines.  Given how new it is, it’s already operating well beyond our early expectations, but by 2023 it will be operating on land and sea to a very high standard indeed.”

Finally a new ‘Ship Rider’ agreement will allow for TCI officers to ride on Bahamian vessels stationed in the water between the Turks and Caicos and Haiti

The end goal of the drastic improvement of seafaring and land based forces is for the TCI to have their very own Coast Guard which the Governor says makes sense if the island is to be successful at managing the crisis.

In relation to the airports Dakin said, “Those entering our country illegally, or overstaying, come as much by air as by sea. The first step will be to combine the enforcement arms of Customs and Immigration to form a Border Force.  That decision has now been taken. As I speak a top team from our Immigration Ministry is in UK looking at their digitised airport security features including pre-registration and e-gates. If we get this right, and I believe UK Border Force and Home Office will support us, in what is intelligence led border protection, those we know will do us ‘no harm’ – such as locals returning home and those arriving from our main markets – should have a seamless arrival and departure at our ports while our Border Force officers focus properly on those who bring the greatest risk.”

It is with this in mind that Dakin said an official Border Force would comprise the enforcement arms of Customs and Immigration.

He said if the TCI could get the intelligence based type of border control right, then citizens, tourists and returning residents would not be affected. This means that people who he stays ‘pose a great risk’ would be caught in a technological bottleneck. To assist the Border Force from above, a ‘top team’ has been appointed. This team consists of the minister of immigration and deputy secretaries who have experience in policing and customer service to make the new processesas smooth and effective  as they can be.

He described the changes to come as once in a generation.

He made specific mention of the boat runners who facilitate the illegal trade of migrants saying that these people under proposed legislation will see a minimum term of seven years in prison and an unlimited fine.

“If the situation is getting worse another reason our allies came is because they now know we are serious because we have shown that seriousness. I said two years ago – when I first travelled to Miami and Nassau – that our allies should not underestimate my ambition, and they should not underestimate TCI’s ambition, and that was because it was hard for us in TCI – to overstate the threat illegal migration was to us.”

Dakin said All of these proposed changes would make the TCI far less attractive to the people who facilitate ‘people smuggling’ on all levels and should make the Turks and Caicos safer for its citizens.