Editorial: Whatever the bureaucratic obstacles, we must help the people of the Bahamas. Period.

After any disaster, rescue and repair efforts are often chaotic, but the incident on Sunday night -- when 119 storm-battered Bahamians hoping for refuge in the United States were kicked off a ferry headed for Florida -- was an especially low point.

Bone-weary men, women and children left the boat after an announcement on board that anyone without a valid visa would "have problems" at the American port of entry.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that the agency requested for the company to coordinate with U.S. and Bahamian governments to arrange prescreening of passengers before departing Freeport but it failed to do so, the Associated Press reported. The ferry operator apologized, saying it had permitted people to board without visas, thinking they weren't needed.

Confused? That's not the half of it.

On Monday, the acting head of CBP, Mark Morgan, assured struggling Bahamians that the U.S. has undertaken "a humanitarian mission."

"If your life is in jeopardy and you're in the Bahamas...you're going to be allowed to come to the United States, whether you have travel documents or not," Morgan soothed.

Then President Trump and said the opposite: "Everybody needs totally proper documentation."

"We have to be very careful," Trump told reporters. "Because, look, the Bahamas had some tremendous problems with people that weren't supposed to be there...including some very bad people and very bad gang members."

Oh, that old song again. Trump's been playing it ever since he announced his candidacy in 2015 with the vow to keep out all those Mexican "rapists". When he wanted to block Syrian refugees, and even ban all Muslim immigration in 2016. Over and over, the smearing of whole populations with exaggerated claims of criminality, the out-of-proportion fears of foreigners sneaking into our pristine homeland bearing ill intent and carrying infectious diseases.

This is galling. At a moment when people of Palm Beach County are mobilizing selflessly to ship supplies to the ravaged islands just 90 miles east of our shore, the president of the United States dregs up the xenophobic bugaboos of his imagination and seeks to slam the door shut.

Thankfully, no bureaucratic obstacles stood in the way of 1,100 Dorian refugees arriving on Saturday morning to the Port of Palm Beach on the cruise ship Grand Celebration, which had sailed to Freeport last week to drop off supplies and bring to safety as many of the storm-tossed as it could -- people who'd lost everything, people who'd almost drowned, people suffering from dehydration after days with scant food or water under a glaring sun.

All credit to Florida's Marco Rubio and Rick Scott -- senators we don't normally praise -- who toured the Bahamas last week and, stunned by the scope of the destruction, urged that the U.S. suspend waiver or suspend certain visa requirements for Bahamians who have relatives in the U.S. while the country rebuilds. People from the Bahamas, they noted, have a history of not overstaying their visas.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, disappointingly, has punted entirely, stating that Bahamas relief is a federal, not a state matter and refusing to ask for visa waivers, at one point asserting that the evacuees are seeking some sort of "special migration." As if they're looking to gain some advantage, rather than just a chance to stay alive.

Rather than a sycophantic parroting of Trump, we wish our governor would follow the lead of Republicans like Rubio on this. The state's senior senator has asked that hospital ship USNS Comfort and other U.S. military aid be sent immediately to the Bahamas. "Only the U.S. military has the logistical capability to do heavy lifts necessary to deliver fuel, medicine, food, and other supplies to islands devastated by Hurricane Dorian," he said in a press release.

But as of this writing, a full week since Category 5 Dorian began shredding Bahamian islands, there's been no productive reply from the Trump administration. This, sadly, is of a piece with how Trump has responded to other natural disasters that have occurred during his presidency.

After Hurricane Maria raked Puerto Rico in 2017, Trump exchanged insults San Juan's mayor, falsely claimed the island "squandered away or wasted" $92 billion in aid money -- as of May, it had received less than $14 billion -- and showed his overall contempt for the survivors by tossing them rolls of paper towels.

He answered the wildfires that killed 85 people and incinerated Paradise, Calif., last year by criticizing officials, inaccurately, for their forest-management practices, claiming they should have raked the forest floor.

After Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston with record floods in 2017, Trump insulted hurricane victims by absurdly claiming they needed rescuing after they "went out in their boats to watch the hurricane" -- when they actually were in boats to seek help.

And just as Dorian was bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard, the administration took $155 million from FEMA's disaster relief fund -- including $17 million for Tyndal Air Force Base in The Panhandle which was ravaged by Hurricane Michael -- to help pay for the inane border wall that he promised (ridiculously) that Mexico would pay for and that Congress (sensibly) refused to fund.

In the face of such heretofore unheard-of obstruction from a U.S. president and passivity from Florida's governor, officials like Morgan, Rubio and Scott must continue to keep urging for a humanitarian response to the disaster that was Dorian -- even if it means contradicting the boss or the head of the party.

The people of Palm Beach County get it. Bahamians are family. We won't hesitate in our efforts to offer temporary refuge or to help rebuild their ravaged homeland because our head of state has his head in the sand.

___

(c)2019 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)

Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at www.palmbeachpost.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.