Above: the Turks and Caicos Islands

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Turks and Caicos Governor Peter Beckingham and Minister of Border Control and Labour Ricardo Donhue Gardiner met Wednesday with the Consul General of Haiti to discuss the issue of continued illegal migration to the territory from Haiti.

In a statement, the Governor’s office said Beckingham and Donhue Gardiner began the talks by expressing their sympathy to the Haitian government for the loss of 17 Haitian lives in the Christmas Day tragedy.

That incident occurred when a boat carrying 17 migrants capsized off the coast of Turks and Caicos while being towed into harbour by TCI officials.

The Turk and Caicos Islands government said its officials told Consul Karlo Pelissier that the TCI government “does not believe that enough is being done to stem the flow of illegal migrants.”

Turks and Caicos officials say the cost of interdiction and repatriation of Haitian migrants totaled over $1.2 million in 2013, a number they called “unacceptable.”

The Governor’s office said TCI officals requested a “greater effort by the Haitian Government to authenticate documents and prevent the apparent prevalence of forged or irregular documents coming from Haiti.”

Illegal migration has been a source of continued tension between the two neighbours in recent years.