Cabinet Minister Alden McLaughlin issued a stark warning to businesses that an open immigration policy could affect their profits.
Mr. McLaughlin |
In defending the term limit immigration policy at the Council of Associations’ Immigration Forum last week, Mr. McLaughlin said there were social consequences for Cayman’s past immigration policies.
‘You can see and sense the increased tensions that have manifested themselves over the past years,’ he said, adding that the tensions are largely caused from Caymanians feeling overwhelmed.
‘Even if you care not about the social consequences, if you don’t preserve some of the things that make Cayman special, then I’m afraid the absence of those things is going to affect the bottom line [of business profits],’ he said.
Mr. McLaughlin said things like the lack of conflict, the friendliness of the people and public safety all are assets of Cayman that make it a desirable place to do business and they all could be affected without the rollover policy.
‘We just can’t look at this in pure dollars and cents terms,’ he said.
Mr. McLaughlin noted that some business owners are doing just that: looking only at how the rollover policy will affect their profits in the short term.
He noted that there were extreme opposing views as well.
‘Some Caymanians are saying the rollover period should be three years and that there shouldn’t be any key employees,’ he said.
Mr. McLaughlin assured the businesspeople in attendance that the government understood that the implementation of an immigration policy needed to allow businesses to continue to attract people from overseas with the key skills necessary to maintain businesses.
‘The object [of the rollover policy] never was and still isn’t to prohibit future immigration, but to limit it,’ he said.
Mr. McLaughlin said the Government had received significant representations from the public about the rollover policy.
‘The vast majority – more than 90 per cent – are in favour of maintaining the rollover policy,’ he said. ‘I should add that the majority of those representations have been made by Caymanians.’
Speaking at the Cabinet Press briefing earlier that day, Mr. McLaughlin noted that the S.C.A.R.E.D. advertising campaign in the newspapers had created a backlash of support for the rollover policy.
The S.C.A.R.E.D advertising campaign featured 10 full-page advertisements with different reasons why the rollover policy was bad for Cayman. The ad included the cell phone numbers of all the Members of the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. McLaughlin said of the 48 or so responses to the ad he had received, only three people had voiced opposition to the rollover policy.
‘Everyone else was overwhelmingly in favour of it,’ he said.
Other Cabinet Ministers at the press briefing said they were getting similar feedback.
‘The S.C.A.R.E.D. ads certainly put our numbers out there to people who didn’t have them before,’ said Minister Charles Clifford, who noted that he had only received two representations from people opposing the rollover policy.
Mr. McLaughlin said people seemed to understand the choices for Cayman were stark.
‘Either we have the rollover policy, or we concede the inevitability that people with no historical connection with the Islands will be in the majority in a very short time.’
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