Opposition: Why suspend rollover?

Opposition party members support some changes to Cayman’s term limits on residency for foreign workers, but party leader Alden McLaughlin said last week he sees little need to temporarily suspend that policy while the government decides what changes should be made.  

Premier McKeeva Bush announced last week he would bring a proposal to Cabinet on Tuesday to suspend the seven-year term limit for foreign workers. The suspension period could last for up to two years, Mr. Bush said, while a public-private committee performed a wholesale review of the policy.  

Changes to Cayman’s Immigration Law would also have to be made and brought before the Legislative Assembly for the suspension to take effect. Mr. Bush said he hoped that could be done later this month.  

Mr. McLaughlin, who in June proposed several major changes to the country’s term limit for foreign workers – often referred to as the rollover policy – said the whole idea of the suspension seemed to be a bit rushed.  

“I have major concerns about what’s been proposed,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “It seems to me that very little thought has been given to how this is supposed to work. This is just indicative of how the government operates.” Independent MLA Ezzard Miller of North Side district said he hadn’t been given enough information to decide one way or the other, but he said one thing was clear: the proposal to suspend the term limit policy would have to be approved by the entire assembly.  

“My off-the-cuff reaction is that I’m not going to support it [referring to the rollover suspension],” Mr. Miller said. “I don’t know how you’re going to suspend [the policy]. If you claim it isn’t any good, get rid of it.”  

Immigration Review Team chair Sherri Bodden-Cowan, who also chairs Cayman’s Work Permit Board, said there is a very strong and practical reason for the immediate suspension of rollover. Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said there are thousands of foreign workers who will soon be coming up on their seven year term limit.  

Key employee status allows a foreign worker to remain in Cayman long enough (eight years) to apply for permanent residence; the right to stay in the country for the rest of their lives. 

Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said with the influx of foreign workers that came to the Cayman Islands in late 2004 and in 2005 following Hurricane Ivan, it was possible that as many as 6,000 people would either have to apply for key status or leave the Islands.  

“We cannot afford 6,000 expatriates to leave the Islands in the next 12 to 24 months,” she said. Immigration statistics show the number of work permit holders in the Cayman Islands has already declined by about 7,000 between late 2008 and mid-2011. 

Other members of Cayman’s business community said they were glad for the opportunity to review the term limit policy.  

“Any sensible proposal that can help to stimulate the economy should be considered at this time,” said Chamber of Commerce President Jim O’Neill.  

“The Government’s announced intention sounds reasonable as it will enable the government to review the impact of the policy which we believe is now overdue, and it makes good economic sense to allow persons who may be imminently facing rollover to avoid being negatively impacted in the meantime,” said Cayman Finance Chairman Richard Coles. 

Legal ‘confusion’ 

Mr. McLaughlin said Cayman’s current Immigration Law is based upon a “graduated rights” scale for foreign workers who have no Caymanian ties.  

Work permit holders who obtain key employee status can apply for permanent residence after eight years. If that status is approved, the permanent resident can apply for British Overseas Territories citizenship and, after a certain time has passed, they can apply for the right to be Caymanian. That right, called Caymanian status, is the penultimate step toward being granted the right to vote. In all, the entire process usually takes about 15 years. Opposition Leader McLaughlin wondered about the effects of suspending the seven-year term limit, essentially the first step in the country’s tiered immigration system.  

“What is going to happen in relation to persons who reach eight years during [the suspension] period?” he asked. “[The suspension] is going to create a void in the legislation.”  

Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said those individuals would be allowed to apply for permanent residence if they reach the eight year threshold, but other immigration rules would still apply.  

“They will be able to apply for permanent residence, but they wouldn’t automatically get that,” she said.  

In no way would any temporary suspension of the term limit policy be allowed to last indefinitely, Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said. Some form of term limit or rollover provision would have to be placed within the country’s Immigration Law. Otherwise, Cayman would be back to the situation where work permit holders were allowed to remain in the country for 20, 25 even 30 years at a time with no citizenship rights or voting status.  

“The UK will not allow us to do that,” she said.  

Mr. McLaughlin said he believed changes to the country’s Immigration Law could be drafted and prepared in short order, perhaps three months, without necessitating a suspension of the term limits.  

“I believe there is real support for more equitable, business-friendly legislation,” he said. “I just don’t see the point of a suspension.”  

Immigration changes 

The opposition leader suggested in June that Cayman should remove key employee designations within the Immigration Law entirely to allow anyone who had stayed in Cayman for eight years to apply for permanent residence.  

A form of the term limit policy would remain in place, Mr. McLaughlin said. In no case would a foreign worker be allowed to stay in Cayman for more than 10 years without obtaining permanent resident status.  

Also, current rules which require companies to hire qualified Caymanians first would remain, he said.  

Neither Mrs. Bodden-Cowan nor Premier Bush said what the ruling government’s plan for immigration reform might entail. However, Mrs. Bodden-Cowan has said on numerous occasions that a term limit for foreign workers must remain in some form, adding that this has been one of the most misunderstood areas of the rollover debate.  

“Irresponsible politicians in the past have suggested that the purpose is to throw expats off the Islands so that Caymanians can take their jobs,” Mrs. Bodden-Cowan said in an interview last year. “In some instances the employment of a Caymanian has been a welcome side effect, (but) it was not the purpose of the rollover.” 

In an article the Caymanian Compass printed in 2006, then-Immigration Board Chairman David Ritch controversially explained the term-limit policy this way: “This is an uncomfortable topic and no one wants to talk about it,” Mr. Ritch said in the article. “I’m going to talk about it because someone has to talk about it.’ 

Mr. Ritch said that as of 22 September, 2006, there were 11,391 Jamaicans out of 24,134 foreign workers in the Cayman Islands. That number has since been reduced to below 8,000 Jamaican work permit holders. Without the rollover policy, Mr. Ritch said thousands of the Jamaicans in Cayman would have stayed long enough to gain security of tenure and eventually Caymanian status. If that happened, they would then be able to bring all of their dependents from Jamaica to the Cayman Islands and then those dependents could obtain Caymanian status as well. 

In a short time, Jamaicans could out-number established Caymanians here, he said.  

Although he conceded that not all Jamaicans would want to stay in the Cayman Islands, Mr. Ritch said a large percentage of them would.