Police in the Bahamas have rounded up 208 Haitians and 22 Jamaicans as part of efforts to clear the country of illegal immigrants. The migrants, rounded up in raids in the capital on Wednesday, face deportation from the Bahamas, an island chain on the northwestern edge of the Caribbean with a population of about 300,000. "We will have sustained exercises until all the immigrants, no matter where they are from, are picked up and repatriated," Labor and Immigration Minister Vincent Peet said. Eugene Newry, Bahamas ambassador to Haiti, echoed the minister's remarks, saying: "If anyone is illegal in the Bahamas they should be rounded up and sent home because there is a proper way of coming into the country." More than 3,000 illegal immigrants were deported in 2004. This year, nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants have been detained in the Bahamas. The majority were repatriated to Haiti, where political turmoil and desperate poverty have pushed thousands of people to take to sea to try to make a better life abroad. The Bahamas enjoys relative prosperity compared to some of its Caribbean neighbors. --SP 2311 Local Time 2011 GMT
