MPs in uproar over Myles’ human trafficking comments

Outraged MPs demanded on Tuesday that Immigration Minister Michael Myles retract his comments accusing past government administrations of facilitating human trafficking by failing to address immigration issues that enabled the exploitation of expat workers.

Myles, presenting his Caymanian Employment and Immigration Ministry’s plans for the 2026-2027 budget and outlining changes to immigration, labour and training to Parliament’s Finance Committee, pointed out a lack of efforts in tackling abuses of the work-permit system over the years, which, he said, had “persisted across multiple administrations”.

The minister noted that individuals are arriving in Cayman on temporary work permits from the Philippines, Nepal and India, only to find there is no job waiting for them.

The Compass last month highlighted this issue of migrants being lured to Cayman on the promise of jobs that turn out not to exist.

Myles told lawmakers, “The issue is not new. Every member of Parliament is aware of this. It has persisted across multiple administrations, and while some may have acknowledged it privately, none took meaningful action to end it.

“Instead, what developed over time was a system where this concept of turnover workers became a source of revenue at the cost of human dignity. Whether we want to admit it or not, that is a form of human trafficking. And as long as it didn’t touch the families of those in power, the can kept being kicked further down the road.”

His comments drew the ire of a number of lawmakers.

Opposition member Roy Tatum asked Myles if he had really meant to say previous governments have been promulgating human trafficking.

Myles responded that he stood by his comments, based on what he had seen over the previous decades. He said certain employers were “bringing people into the country, they’re victimising them. This isn’t a secret, so let’s stop talking about this as if we haven’t heard this stuff. … You can call it whatever you want, but, to me, it’s human trafficking, and we’ve made a lot of money out of it as a government.”

Tatum told the minister he was “astonished” that Myles was accusing colleagues on the government benches, some of whom were members of former administrations, of human trafficking. He added that a person leaving a work permit and taking up another job could not be considered to be human traffickng.

‘Out of order’

Cayman’s most immediate past premier, Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, also demanded that Myles retract his statement, accusing him of being “out of order” and in breach of parliamentary standing orders that prohibit MPs from using offensive or insulting language regarding other members of the House or imputing improper motives on them.

She read out a dictionary definition of human trafficking, which defined it as “an unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of enforced labour or sexual exploitation”, and asked if Myles still maintained he was using the term correctly, in the context of a parliamentary debate about his fellow MPS.

In response, the minister continued to defend his comments, saying he was not accusing any particular member of the House of human trafficking, but was highlighting a long-standing system that allowed such practices to continue unabated for years.

He also referred to a practice of employers contacting government ministers to get work permits approved. “We’re now in a position where we’re holding those organisations more accountable. You simply can’t just apply for a work permit after denying a Caymanian an opportunity and feel you can call the minister and get it approved. That has been the practice for a long time as well,” he said.

He added that, in his six months as immigration minister, “an incredible amount of organisations” had been appealing directly to him. “They’re bypassing the director [of WORC], they’re bypassing the chief officer, and they either call on me or they call on at times the [deputy governor] in order to get work permits approved,” he said.

After parliamentarians returned to the Finance Committee after a short evening break, Myles agreed to retract his statement, saying he had been referring to the exploitation of workers who were deceived into coming to Cayman for non-existent jobs.

While he said many in the community were aware of the practice, he stated he was not accusing any member of the House of being involved. “I’m not accusing any current or former Member of Parliament or their families of participating in the statutory crime of human trafficking,” he said, and requested that such references be struck from the record.