Topic: Linda Evans

The Cayman Islands Immigration Department will likely no longer be a standalone public sector entity, once the local government finishes a series of reorganizations it is making within the civil service, the Cayman Compass has learned.

Retired Chief Immigration Officer Linda Evans has been cleared following an internal investigation against her that took nearly three years to resolve.

Suspended Cayman Islands Chief Immigration Officer Linda Evans has agreed to take early retirement from the civil service, after spending nearly three years on paid leave.

Two top Cayman Islands law enforcement officials have now served a combined three-and-a-half years on paid leave relating to various misconduct allegations, with no sign of resolutions in their respective cases.

The Cayman Islands Immigration Department collected an estimated $67.2 million in permanent residency fees between mid-2009 and last month, with fee collections averaging about $9.5 million per year from those who legally maintained that immigration status. The current unpaid residency fees – about $2.7 million – represents less than five percent of the fees paid to government over the past seven years.

Allegations of crime, drunk driving, other traffic-related charges and accusations of administrative wrongdoing have been made against several staffers – most of them in senior positions – in the Cayman Islands Immigration Department, with some cases dragging on for years.