They apparently don't want to leave the Cardassia System, and as such do not load anyone onto their colony ships.

The new colony is formed, but there are no people living there. There's a spot for max population, but not one for current population on the system display screen. There's nothing in the labor pool and while structures can be queued, they cannot be built as a result.

Hmm this might be a bug or just a badly designed colony ship.

I'll give Mike a nudge about this.

lol, that's an odd one. I'll look into this .