franchises, mega-schools and other local goings-on that the bigger world is forgotten -- until it literally lands on our doorstep.

That happened this week when the Xing Da , carrying 83 illegal immigrants and 26 crew, was bought to our shores after being seized by the United States Coast Guard.

There's no question that Bermuda did the right thing in allowing the vessel into its waters and letting the US use the Airport to take the passengers away. That was the only humane thing to do, regardless of the obligations the Island has under the Safety of Life at Sea convention.

The mistreatment of Chinese migrants being carried illegally into the United States is horrific and well-documented. Should the migrants successfully make landfall, they are often forced to spend years as indentured servants to pay off the tens of thousands of dollars their passages cost. We all have a duty do something to stop people profiteering from human misery.

It may seem contradictory that Bermuda would then refuse to allow the passengers and crew to come ashore unless they could be taken directly off the Island again. But Bermuda simply does not have secure facilities available for the number of people involved, particularly given the desperation of those on board. That desperation apparently led the passengers on the Xing Da to try to set the ship on fire when the Coast Guard boarded and in 1993, ten migrants on board a ship which ran aground off New York drowned trying to swim ashore. The risks involved in a case like this were so high that the heavy security measures taken were justified.

It's not so easy to justify the attitude of the United States government towards Bermuda in this case. Efforts to get information about the ship -- and how and why it was seized in the first place -- proved fruitless until it suited the US authorities to make them public. There is reason to believe that senior members of the Government knew little more than the rest of the community about the sting operation in which the US was involved.

While indictments against the alleged leaders of the smuggling ring were pending, it could be argued by some that this silence was justified -- but it is hard to understand why details of the seizure itself should have been kept secret. Despite Bermuda's assistance in this case, too often, it was ignored by US officials.

Bermuda may be small and economically dependent on the US, but it is not a US dependent territory and having offered assistance as a humanitarian gesture, deserved more information about the true facts of this case.