Staff 'publicly maligned'

June 25, 2003

Dear Sir,

Staff at the Department of Immigration recall the writer of the Letter to the Editor entitled 'Utter incompetence' that appears in (the July 24) edition of TheRoyal Gazette.

The authoress of the letter omitted to inform the reading public that she was not born in the United Kingdom but in Turkey, so that on renewal in Washington, DC, the passport-issuing section of the British Embassy would need to have evidence that traced her citizenship.

The expired Bermuda-issued passport that she presented to the Department of Immigration does not show how she acquired her British citizenship. Since May, 2002 when the British Embassy in Washington, DC began issuing all of Bermuda's British citizen passports, they have been consistently requesting full documentation, even when renewing British citizen passports issued in Bermuda.

The Department was ready to send the most recent, expired Bermuda-issued passport with her application to Washington, DC, but she needed the full documentation.

The documents required in her circumstances are her birth certificate showing her parents' names, her parents' marriage certificate and her UK-born father's birth certificate.

The customer was unable to produce the last two documents and she was very angry at having been asked for them.

She said that she had numerous UK passports and did not see why she had to produce all these documents to get one.

All the Immigration staff who were spoken to about this matter gave the same answer: that as Washington, DC was insisting on full documentation for all passport applications from Bermuda, in order to obtain a new passport from the British Embassy in Washington, DC through the Department of Immigration, she would have to produce the originals of all the documents requested.

Your writer also failed to mention that the passport on which she travelled to the UK was a temporary passport issued to her by the Department of Immigration to facilitate her travel to the UK so that she could obtain the necessary documents. She claims to have obtained a new passport in London. If she did, and she did not present all the necessary documentation to prove her citizenship, it is likely that the London passport office issued the passport on the basis of a previous passport issued to her in the United Kingdom of which they would have a record.

I am saddened that the Department of Immigration has been publicly maligned when its hard-working staff were merely complying with the requirements of the British Embassy in Washington, DC.

TERRYE. LISTER, JP, MP

Minister of Labour, Home Affairs

and Public Safety

Bravo, Yannis and Rajesh

June 23, 2003

Dear Sir,

I want to salute Yannis Williams and Rajesh Pachal who were featured in Monday's Royal Gazette. It is young people like you that should be showcased more often. I know that there are several other success stories that need to be told about our youth in Bermuda.

NEVILLET. DARRELL

Devonshire

Thoughtful writing...

June 10, 2003

Dear Sir,

Today there had been a request that I no longer use the pseudonym of "Food 4 Thought" - unbeknownst to me that there is a catering service under the name of Food 4 Thought...

I want it to be known that I do not have any affiliation or nor do I mean to mislead anyone by signing my comments or suggestions under the pen of Food 4 Thought... I used the pseudonym because my writings are just that...

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

St. George's