Governor Jane Owen said that preparations for a potential influx of migrants are well under way, with the establishment of a Mass Migration Committee and the building of temporary structures to house any arrivals.
Speaking on Compass TV’s Forefront on 16 April, Owen told host Tammi Sulliman that she was continuing to monitor the situation very closely, particularly with regard to Cuba, and said, “I think it’s fair to say we’re a lot more prepared than we would have been six months ago.”
The governor said that the partnership with the UK was an advantage in the current geo-political situation and that she was in close contact with the British ambassador to Cuba, James Hooley.
Disaster planning
“We’ve been working to make sure that we have our contingencies in place,” said Owen. “We’re used to doing this with crisis and disaster planning for hurricanes, so it feels quite a natural thing to be doing.”
She added that there were physical aspects to the preparations, such as rebuilding the detention centre for immigrants, which hasn’t yet been done, but she said government has been clearing land in Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, as well as purchasing temporary structures so that migrants can be housed.
“We’ve slightly changed our visa regime for some countries, both incoming visas [and] transit visas, to make sure we’re in a good position,” she said. “And we are also in continual talks with the Cuban government, in particular, to make sure that we have repatriation arrangements. This year, [of] people who came and who were deemed to be economic migrants, 28 of those have already been sent back to Cuba, and we’re only in early April, so the process, I’m pleased to say, is actually working extremely well.”
Outgoing Deputy Governor Franz Manderson said that he believed that “the civil service is set up to perform at the highest level, when the country needs it,” adding that it was a very different picture historically. He said that the country had not been prepared for the mass arrivals 32 years ago when over 1,000 Cuban migrants landed in the Cayman Islands over a four-week period following President Fidel Castro’s decision to lift the bans on Cubans leaving the country.
“We were not prepared in 1994 for mass migration,” said Manderson. “We had no relationship with Cuba. We had no MOU, so preparedness is absolutely critical.”
When it came to national preparedness ahead of hurricane season, incoming deputy governor, Gloria-McField Nixon, who takes up her new role on 8 July, said that she would be inheriting “a very strong and robust structure”, and had herself been through Multi-Agency Gold Incident Command training, a specialised training programme designed for high-level strategic leaders to manage large-scale emergencies, such as hurricanes or floods.
“We’ve been increasing our preparedness, including making sure that, as individuals, we understand the best methodologies for working a crisis,” she said. “Some of these things will continue to be the bedrock, as, for all of our training, for all of our technology, it’s going to be that communication to the community, keeping everyone apprised, step by step of what is happening.
“We know that we have strong support of our government to make any investments that are necessary, to both deal with the threats of hurricanes. But if, God forbid, we should have a hit, we also have significant track record in the recovery.”
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How appropriate that the Caymans are now prepared for both”migrants and hurricanes”, since both are disasters for your Islands and their communities.
With all due respect it, seems the Governor is concerned with the need to provide proper housing for migrants, but what about our prisoners who are in dire straits with apparently no plans for properly housing them.