After yesterday's announcement of plans to resettle four Chinese Muslims on the Island who had been detained at Guantánamo Bay, The Royal Gazette took to the streets to find out the opinions of the Bermudian community.

Kenyatta Tucker, 30, said: "I think it is fair that Bermuda is actually going to do it, but the problem is that you have a lot of Bermudians that actually want to get citizenship in Bermuda after being born here and haven't been given the opportunity to for other reasons such as their family members aren't Bermudians and those guys are being forced to leave.

He continued: "And then you have guys that are from a different country, weren't born here and don't know anything about Bermuda that are getting naturalised as Bermudians and it's just not fair.

"We needed to be consulted because by being consulted at least we would have known what to do. But I think it's still unfair for us as Bermudians to be pushed on."

Said a 60-year-old woman who declined to give her name: "I think we as Bermudians need to take a more aggressive stance on the situation."

Eric Trott, a self-employed contractor said: "I think it's wrong, simply because we cannot go anywhere else in the world.

"I am PLP, but we don't need any foreigners here — especially detainees. When you go down to the airport and America says that you are on the stop list, what can you do?

"You can't travel. So we don't need to bring in all these people here because there are too many of us here. We need to get ourselves together. We have a right, the right to vote, and if everybody came out then this wouldn't go this way."

16-year-old Michael Grant said: "I think it makes Bermuda look good to the world, it's not really that bad. It makes us look good from a humanitarian perspective to the world."

However, the student added: "I don't think the way [Premier] Ewart Brown did it by keeping it classified was right. People shouldn't have found out when they got on the Island. We should have known beforehand."

Said 26-year-old Michelle Elliott: "What was he thinking? I'm just very disappointed that he took it upon himself to do it without consulting someone else, the higher grounds, being the Government.

"That's what really bothers me, that he took it upon himself, like he seems to do with many other situations. It's like he doesn't seem to take Bermudians' considerations into the decisions that he's making and that's what bothers me the most."

Scott Holder, 41, added: "I don't think it's a bad idea. I just think that everybody wanted Guantánamo closed but no one wanted to actually do whatever it is that needed to be done afterwards.

"I agree with it, but not necessarily with the way that it was done. He needed to go through the proper channels.

"As far as it being a humanitarian act, I can see where the Premier is coming from in that sense, but it seems to me slightly unfair that you have overseas workers here, expats, that have been here most of their lives and a lot of people my own age who have been here their whole lives and stand no chance of getting citizenship.

"Moreover as far as it goes with the Constitution, I think that bypassing the Governor and the FCO completely has created some pretty serious conditions for Bermuda which I think a lot of people seem quite outraged over, so generally I think that it should have been brought about with more caution perhaps."