(Photo Credit: AP)

Bahamians will not be allowed in the U.S. without a passport

President Trump said “bad people” from the Bahamas would not be allowed into the United States in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, which caused severe damage across the Bahamas and killed several dozen people in the island nation.

A few days after the storm, a rescue ship bound for Florida told evacuees they would not be allowed into the U.S. without a visa. About 140 people then departed the ship, according to witnesses. Authorities said the evacuees who left the ship were sent to Nassau to get visas.

Trump said those evacuees were in the Bahamas illegally and posed a security threat to the U.S.

“We have to be very careful. Everybody needs totally proper documentation because the Bahamas had some tremendous problems with people going to the Bahamas that weren’t supposed to be there,” Trump said on Monday. “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.”

Customs and Border Patrol denied it was straying from precedent in dealing with Dorian evacuees. They say people fleeing hurricanes in other countries have always been subject to the same process.

“CBP continues to process the arrivals of passengers evacuating from the Bahamas according to established policy and procedures — as demonstrated by the nearly 1,500 Hurricane Dorian survivors who arrived at the Port of Palm Beach, Fla., aboard a cruise ship on Saturday and were processed without incident,” CBP said in a statement.