Trump warns of ‘bad people’ among hurricane survivors

WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump said Monday that the US would have to be careful about allowing Bahamian survivors of Hurricane Dorian into the country, warning there could be “very bad people” among them.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, the president — who has made strict immigration regulations a pillar of his presidency — said that “everyone needs totally proper documentation.”

“The Bahamas has some tremendous problems with people going to the Bahamas that weren’t supposed to be there,” Trump said. “I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers.”

Confusion over required travel documents is hindering some efforts to help Bahamian refugees anxiously fleeing Hurricane Dorian’s carnage for the US.

At the Treasure Cay airstrip, many private plane owners refused to fly anyone without a valid US passport over fear the pilots would be detained for questioning, slowing return flights. And hundreds of refugees were ordered off a Florida-bound ferry because they did not have visas.

Viral video posted from the ferry Balearia in Freeport on Sunday included an announcement that “all passengers who don’t have a US visa, please proceed to disembark” the ship, headed for Port Everglades.

The incident took place one day after the cruise ship Grand Celebration, with 1,500 refugees aboard, arrived at the Port of Palm Beach in an evacuation mission that had been coordinated with US and Bahamian governments.

US Customs and Border Protection, however, said all of those evacuees possessed “valid travel documents” and urged private vessel and aircraft operators to coordinate any evacuation missions with Bahamian authorities.

Normally, most Bahamians would need a visa, and WSVN-TV in Miami reported that hundreds of disappointed passengers left the Balearia. It turns out they may not have actually needed to.

Stephen Silvestri, acting port director in Port Everglades, told the station that authorities in his port would have processed the evacuees without visas and has done so with refugees arriving on other ships in recent days. He blamed a “business decision” by the ferry operators, suggesting the ferry operators did not want the ship docked for hours while the refugees were processed one by one.

“We would have processed them, vetted them and worked within our laws and protocols and done what we had to do to facilitate them,” Silvestri said.

Documents also were proving an issue on some refugee flights to the US.