IMMIGRATION REFORM TAKES CENTRE STAGE

By Stuart Wilson

With a population of roughly 89,000 - expatriates comprising over 55 per cent of that number - immigration reform in the Cayman Islands took centre stage at the Mary Miller Hall on Wednesday, 29th October.

Hon. Minister for Caymanian Employment, Michael Myles of the National Coalition For Caymanians(NCFC) government, presented the gathering with the amendments he is championing to the immigration legislation.

Mr Myles began the evening by explaining the reasons for updating the law, outlining the particulars of the consultation period with the public around the proposed reforms.

“We have been doing public consultation for the last 6 weeks and it has been glorious, with over 80 companies from every sector - from tourism to financial services, construction and human resources. Everyone has been at the table giving us feedback,” Mr Myles said. 

He added that it was not just about changing laws and regulations but actually solving problems.

Making WORC work

“One of the biggest challenges that we have in our WORC Department(Workforce Opportunities & Residency) is the amount of temporary work permits being processed,” Min. Myles stated.

“Currently, we have about 65,000 applications that come through WORC each year, and of that number 40,000 are temporary work permits, with 30,000 converting to full work permits,” he remarked, adding that it slows down the process.

“99 per cent of the organisations that are applying for a work permit want a full work permit, but because they cannot get that in under thirty days, they are applying for a temporary work permit,” he said.

“We have 30,000 temporary permits that are converted. The immigration Department is touching all those work permits at least three times; the first time is to get that person in the country, and then most companies are using us to regulate their probationary period, so we extend it to another three months and then once that extension is over, they are now applying for a one-year or full work permit.” 

Mr Myles said that puts enormous pressure on the Immigration Department, rendering it inefficient.

He explained that a temporary work permit is meant to be for one to three months and should only be used for persons coming to Cayman for a temporary period and leaving. Examples include a doctor coming in to do a procedure for a few weeks or a month or two and then leaving, or an attorney coming in to work a case and leaving, a band or a musician coming in for one to five days to a couple of gigs.

However, the Minister pointed out that successive governments have allowed temporary work permits to be the end-all and be-all because they produce revenue for the government. Mr Myles declared that immigration cannot just be about revenue. “It must be about protecting Caymanians and protecting our borders. It starts with reducing temporary work permits.”

Prioritising Caymanians in career pathways

According to official records, over the past 3 to 5 years, the Government has spent over KYD40 million on scholarships. However, Mr Myles, the Minister for Caymanian Employment, pointed out that inadequate information sharing in the public service makes it difficult for his Ministry to ascertain who is away studying, a situation which he said results in more temporary work permits being issued.

Just this year alone, the Cayman Islands Government approved KYD20 million in scholarships for over 1800 students overseas.

“I don’t know any of them,” Mr Myles admitted, adding that, “We have to get the talent fast-tracked into these jobs and be more efficient. Immigration is in chaos. This is not sustainable. Yes, we make KYD$100 million per year, but we are spending KYD$60 million on welfare programmes.”

Minister Myles painted a picture that “on any given day we can have an able-bodied 20-year-old, who cannot get a job, walk into the Department of Financial Assistance, and we are having to support that young person.”

Noting that the Cayman Islands also spends approximately  KYD75 million on indigent health insurance, he concluded that “we can’t sustain this long term.”

Pressing home the point to the town hall gathering, Mr Myles said: “We have to look at the numbers. We have to make our boards more efficient. These entities need to be apolitical and we have to look at the bigger picture; getting Caymanians back to work, able to afford health insurance and participating in the economy that we and our forefathers have built.”

Succession planning needed

Min. Myles went on to say the public service must also have term limits, succession in-service training and planning to follow its own laws.

“We can’t have a situation where someone works within the private sector after 6 or 7 years, and then comes into civil services for another 5 years, fast tracks into permanent residency, and then they are on to Caymanian status and back with the private sector.”

He said he was under no illusion that the government could fill every job in the Cayman Islands with Caymanians, as there are more jobs than there are people. “However, if you don’t hire our people, you’re not hiring anybody.”

According to Mr Myles: “We want and we need the private sector, but it has to be a partnership. You cannot build a hotel and say you’re not going to hire our people or open a bank and bring in a general manager when we have people who are qualified for those types of jobs.”

“People make promises and once given concessions, they do not hold up their end of the bargain,” he observed. “We are overwhelming the infrastructure, and then we are turning around and saying to our people: ‘I’ll just give you more welfare’.”

Population profile

Mr Myles also referred to the impact on the traffic system and Cayman’s housing market, pointing out that prices have risen exponentially due to the high demand because of the rate at which the population is growing - in many cases due to foreign labourers being imported.

He also said funding the police to deal with the population explosion in Cayman is costing the government in the region of KYD70 million per year.

Addressing other social impacts, he lamented the plight of young persons who expressed their concern about not feeling like they are in Cayman anymore.

He cited as an example, language barriers where staff in some businesses speak little or no English, and situations where nationals are overlooked for promotions, with the preference given to persons whose background is similar to the supervisor..

“Persons just leaving school do not believe it is possible for them to own a house or purchase land in our own country. We cannot sit back and continue to make promises. We have to make the changes that are common sense and balanced.”

He also addressed the matter of sham marriages, saying that  Cayman has been inundated with the Immigration Department now investigating over 200 of them.

Min. Myles said he was confident that the government is taking the right approach, adding that after consultation with many stakeholders over a six-week period, there were not many flaws that could be identified in the amendments.

Plugging the loopholes

Chief Officer in the Ministry of Caymanian Employment & Immigration, Wesley Howell outlined the technical aspects of the immigration law reform during the town-hall consultation.

He prefaced his remarks by referring to a case that was before the Courts for sentencing in relation to facilitating work permits of convenience for individuals from a particular country.

“We have individuals from the Philippines and Nepal who are being exploited quite significantly,” he stated.

“Some of them are working with local actors in order to get ‘temporary work permits’. They usually come on a temporary work permit and during that period they look for legitimate work.”

Mr Howell said that in a bid to curb the practice, controls have been put in place, meaning that within the first two years of their employment, an employee recruited from overseas will not be able to change employers, save for exceptional circumstances, where they are not being paid or they are being abused.

“The other group of individuals who have made significant representations to us are small or medium businesses who are typically flying individuals from around the world, paying their expenses and so on, and then once here those persons engage in ‘shopping around’  for other employers who are paying a bit more,” he disclosed.  

Marriages of convenience

Mr Howell cited the issue of marriages of convenience as a big concern, not just with persons with PR and persons who are Caymanian, but also with marriages to persons on a work permit.

He explained: “The scenario with marriages of convenience among work permit holders is when they are approaching their term limit (year 7 or year 8) and they are fairly certain they are not going to be considered for permanent residency, they then enter into a marriage with someone whose work permit is on year one or two. They can then ‘piggyback’ as that person’s spouse (on the spouse of a work permit holder exemption) and carry on for an additional 6 or 7 years past their time limit.”

The new amendment will mean that in such marriages, the limit will not increase due to marrying another work permit holder with considerably more time. 

The vast majority of persons who become Caymanian are said to do so by marriage, according to official records.

Mr Howell said in 2024 there were 669 marriages, including 150 visitors who got married in the Cayman Islands.

But he disclosed that “well over 200 of those are being investigated as marriages of convenience”, calling the problem “quite prevalent”.

More changes planned

The proposed amendments to the Immigration (Transition) Act (2022 Revision) do not include any change to the permanent residency framework, as such changes will be addressed in the next round of legislative amendments.

It was explained that regarding persons who are holding a Residency and Employment Rights Certificate(RERC), currently their permanent residency certificates are issued without an end date.

At present, because they are indefinite, individuals who are within a year of receiving that document could get the naturalisation status. 

The change being proposed to the law means that persons starting a work permit at ‘year 1’ can apply for permanent residency at ‘year 8’ and if granted permanent residency one year later (‘year 9), they can be eligible for naturalisation by ‘year 10’.

It was also pointed out that under a new system, such persons would then have to wait an additional 5 years to qualify for full Caymanian citizenship - making the process a total of 15 years.