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Dreams and Deadly Seas By Samantha Schmid, Paulina Villegas and Hannah Dormido July 27 at 8:00 a.m. NASSAU, Bahamas — By day, Jet Ski operators zip through the turquoise waters around
Arawak Cay, where tourists dine on conch salads from brightly painted wooden
shacks.
But
by night, inky blue waves become a covert gateway through the vast Caribbean
to the United States.
It was here that a 33-foot boat named Bare Ambition set out
after midnight one day last summer. It slid away from a rocky beach hidden
behind a dilapidated former nightclub known as the Sand Trap, which sat
beside a brothel and a block from a building once operated by the U.S.
Embassy.
The
boat, described by an investigator as a “pleasure craft,” was supposed to
carry only 20 people. Instead,
dozens of Haitians huddled together on board. Some had spent years living in
the Bahamas. Others were recent arrivals. All hoped to reach the promised
land for thousands of migrants crossing these waters: Florida.
The Bare Ambition didn’t get far. Battered by rough waters about six miles from the harbor, it began to take on water. In the darkness and panic, some on board began spilling over the sides of the boat and into the sea. Others were trapped inside. No one wore a life jacket.  At about 1:30 a.m. on July 24, 2022, Royal
Bahamas Defense Force rescuers arrived to find about a dozen men sitting on
top of the mostly submerged vessel. Other people were flailing in the water
around them.
Authorities heard knocking
from the hull. Inside, they found a woman who had survived in an air pocket.
At least 17 Haitians died
that morning — a man, 15 women and a little girl. It was the worst loss of life
in Bahamian waters in years.
This island nation has
stepped up patrols to confront a record surge in migration to and from its
many shores. Its prime minister has declared that “the Bahamas is for
Bahamians.” The country apprehended 3,605 migrants in 2022, more than in
the previous three calendar years combined, according to the Royal Bahamas
Defense Force. More than three-quarters of them were Haitian.
So far this year, Bahamian
authorities have apprehended 1,736 migrants, 1,281 of them Haitian.
The United States also has increased enforcement. Coast Guard
cutters have been rescuing migrants from foundering or overcrowded boats
every few days and sending them back to their home countries.
To discourage irregular
migration, the Biden administration has set up a system for foreigners to
apply for asylum online, while turning back those who have not.
None of those measures have stopped the perilous journeys.  Only 25 people were rescued on that morning last summer.
Authorities laid the bodies
of the dead facedown on a tarp and took photos. One of those images reached
the cellphone of Lenise Georges as she sat in a Nassau church pew and
listened to Sunday services.
There, on WhatsApp, was the
body of her 43-year-old sister, Altanie Ivoy, a mother of three, in a pink
zigzag shirt. Georges recognized her back and the shape of her arm, the elbow
she’d known since they were children.
Next to her, wearing red polka-dot pants, was Ivoy’s 1-year-old daughter Kourtney, who had just begun to say her first words. She was the only child on the boat
 For centuries, the Bahamas has been a smuggler’s paradise.
The islands were a haven for
pirates plundering gold in the 1600s, rum runners bootlegging liquor during
Prohibition and “Cocaine Cowboys” ferrying drugs into Florida in the 1980s. Now the smugglers are moving people.
As one put it: “All that
changed was the cargo.”
The Commonwealth’s 700
islands, porous borders and proximity to the United States have for decades made it both a destination and a
transit point for migrants, predominantly Haitians. Ongoing chaos and violence in
Haiti and a crippling economic crisis in Cuba are powering a new surge of
people who try to slip into Florida by sea.
It’s no longer only people from the Caribbean who use this route to make a run for the United States. With its relatively lenient visa requirements, the Bahamas now draws migrants of means from around the world, from as far away as China, Cameroon and Iraq. They buy a plane ticket, land on an island and look for a boat......
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