HMBS Bahamas (P 60). Photo credit: “FotoDawg”

USNORTHCOM’s online magazine, “The Watch” reports,

“The Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), operating jointly with the U.S. Coast Guard and Turks and Caicos Islands personnel, intercepted a ship with 145 Haitian migrants on August 13, 2023.”

What I found surprising here was this,

“The interdiction was the second since the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory, signed a ship rider agreement in 2022. The pact allows law enforcement officials from one country to conduct operations on board the vessels of another for specific law enforcement purposes, according to an RBDF Facebook post.”

The Coast Guard, off course, has lots of these bilateral agreements, but this is the first I have heard about where the USCG was not one of the parties. Perhaps the model is spreading to other partnerships.