Many supporters of the Bermuda Government’s Pathways to Status plan are “absolutely terrified” to publicly back it because of the Opposition’s “nasty” and racially charged “campaign of misinformation”, according to Michael Fahy, the Minister of Home Affairs.

Senator Fahy told The Royal Gazette that the majority of people he had spoken to were in favour of the proposed immigration reforms, adding: “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people in the community who are very supportive but are absolutely terrified of being identified.

“They are terrified of making public statements because of the nasty dialogue from the Opposition and some of their supporters.”

His comments came a day after Shadow Minister of Home Affairs Walter Roban was chastised during a parliamentary debate on the reforms for saying: “I have to ... almost compare the OBA to a cockroach ... which carry certain diseases on their appendages.”

During the same session, Opposition leader Marc Bean said the Government had 48 hours to withdraw the Pathways bill or, he predicted, “all hell will break loose”.

Mr Fahy said various organisations that supported the plan, including the Jamaican Association and the West Indian Association, told government they wanted to issue public statements but changed their minds after they saw the reaction to the Association of Filipinos.

That group went public on its support for Pathways last month, prompting what the minister described as a high number of “hateful remarks on the blogs”, including comments about Filipinos stealing jobs from Bermudians.

Mhely Carlit, who came here from the Philippines in 1996 and who is featured in a government campaign promoting Pathways, told this newspaper her family had suffered threats and abusive language in the past.

She said since the publicity campaign was launched “we just try to avoid people who are congregating because we don’t want any action towards us”.

The Vasco da Gama Club and Portuguese Cultural Association has also publicly backed the reforms, which would allow those resident in Bermuda for 15 years to apply for permanent residency and permanent residents who have lived here for 20 years to apply for Bermudian status.

“People have a real fear,” said Mr Fahy. “When you use racially charged language it scares away that silent majority to speak out. That’s exactly what has happened here. That’s why we saw such inflammatory language in the House last night.”

An online petition in support of Pathways to Status had gathered more than 2,500 signatures by yesterday afternoon but the person understood to have launched it didn’t respond to interview requests from this newspaper.

Mr Fahy said he had nothing to do with the petition or an associated Facebook page, adding: “They did this absolutely on their own as concerned citizens. They felt this was the right thing to do.”

The senator said the Progressive Labour Party claimed to want a bipartisan approach to the reforms, while deliberately fostering unrest.

“On the one hand, you have got a shadow minister calling for collaboration and he likened the OBA to diseased cockroaches. This is someone who wants to be the Minister of Home Affairs. It’s outrageous. When you hear Marc Bean saying in his speech ‘there are not enough police in this country to hide behind, we can’t be responsible for the consequences’ — you can’t say to me that that’s a genuine offer for collaboration in any shape or form, when it’s laced with racial remarks, it’s laced with remarks that will intensify people’s feelings on both sides.

“I find it so ironic that people can say the kinds of things they are saying when many of them are married to foreigners, they have gone overseas to have children to benefit from citizenship rights in those countries, they have parents who are from other jurisdictions.

“It is designed to inflame and it’s designed to bring about social unrest. That’s what they are doing and what they are deliberately doing.

“I have absolutely no doubt, having been in the unfortunate position of having to spend my time listening to it yesterday, that this is a deliberate campaign of disinformation and misinformation and it’s designed to inflame racial tensions in Bermuda and it’s absolutely wrong to do so.”

Mr Roban yesterday expressed disappointment that the One Bermuda Alliance had “refused an olive branch extended by the Progressive Labour Party” to establish a joint select committee on immigration reform, which prompted Monday night’s debate.

“In taking this course of action, Premier Michael Dunkley and his fellow OBA members of Parliament have collectively thumbed their noses to and ignored the wishes of a significant portion of our community,” he said. “This current Government does not represent anything that it was elected under and clearly has lost its way.”

There have been several staged protests against Pathways since it was announced at the start of February, with campaigners shouting down the minister and Cabinet colleagues at a public meeting and police criticising a rush-hour demonstration that brought traffic to a halt.

One-woman protestor Enda Matthie, meanwhile, began a vigil outside Sessions House yesterday morning to protest against the reforms. She was joined overnight and this morning by supporters.

The anti-Pathways Immigration Reform Action Group said in a statement today it was “unacceptable” that Ms Matthie was compelled to stage a “hunger strike” because the OBA was not “listening to the people”.

Mr Fahy said it was no surprise some people were scared to go public with their views. “Can you blame them when the leader of the Opposition is prepared to stand up in Parliament and say people should be marching outside my house?” he asked.

“That kind of language: most people do not have the appetite to deal with it and I don’t blame them. But the majority of people you talk to in the street, they say ‘this is the right thing to do’. It is fear [that stops them speaking out].”

He said an analysis of polls showed support for extending residency and status rights in Bermuda had risen over time and no one had publicly articulated any opposition to the “substance of government’s proposals”.

And, citing an editorial in the Cayman Compass newspaper this week on the immigration debate in Bermuda, which applauded the Bermuda Government’s “pro-business” approach, Mr Fahy said: “We are doing exactly the right thing in terms of human rights and economic growth. There’s nothing to disagree with what their assessment is, from the outside looking in.”