Colin Wilson

The government’s controversial Immigration Bill managed to get passed by the Legislative Assembly despite two votes they were counting on didn’t materialise.

Employment and Education Minister Tara Rivers was missing, citing she was unwell, and Winston Connolly the government backbencher and councillor in the employment ministry had to tell the legislators what was happening regarding how Caymanians would get first refusal on the Term Limit Exemption Permits (TLEP} jobs.

Anthony Eden, the veteran Progressives (PPM) backbencher surprisingly, joined the opposition to the Immigration Bill and voted “No”.

The contentious issue was over the 1,500 exemption permit holders who will remain on island entitling them to apply for residency.

This has prompted two silly marches that were not well attended despite the publicity from the media, which suggests the majority of Cayman’s public have accepted Premier Alden McLaughlin’s assertions that although these persons can apply for permanent residency it doesn’t mean they will automatically be granted it. In fact with the new legislation now in place it is even harder to obtain permanent residency.

Even with a petition that North Side MLA, Ezzard Miller, had heavily promoted it only had 800 signatures on it opposing the new Bill and the majority was from West Bay. That in itself was probably enough to make Rivers, the West Bay representative, ill!

I doubted government’s wisdom in dropping the employment term limit from ten down to nine. The PPM campaigned on ten and I said in a previous Editorial I thought this was wrong. It would not please any of the persons who opposed it as the decrease was not enough. It would also displease the many of us who agreed with the ten years and voted the government into power because of it.

No matter how hard the premier tried to convince people the new immigration bill is helping Caymanians get in front of the line for jobs there will always be those who refuse to listen or are incapable of understanding. There has to be a balance between the Caymanians and the need for expatriates in the workplace. Our economy is fragile and we need to cater to both.

The one sided and blinkered view from some of our older MLAs if it had been put in place would have made our economy stagnate. We manufacture almost nothing. We need the outside world. We cannot have all the pie – we have to give some back.

The new bill has more safeguards to protect Caymanians than ever before and I am pleased McLaughlin stuck to his guns. He showed leadership and being a leader is not always popular.

“We understand that there are real concerns about the state of the economy and unemployment and they colour views about this as they think this will make life easier to employ foreigners.  We take the other view. We think it is going to make it more likely that Caymanians will be employed,” McLaughlin said. “The law has introduced severe consequences for those trying to defraud the system.”

Well said.