Old bosses remain on new residency board

| 22/04/2014

(CNS): Waide DaCosta, the chairman appointed by the previous UDP administration, and the deputy chair, Adrien Briggs, are staying at the helm of the new Caymanian Status and Permanent Residency Board, offering some continuity as the members tackle new rules. Almost a year after coming into office the PPM administration has finally appointed a new set of people to serve on one the most important immigration boards, which is understood to be a lot less busy than in the past. With the backlog of applications prior tothe change in the law now settled, the board has not yet begun dealing with the limited numbers of new applications as it awaits clarification on the new point system.

Although appointments to the boards are generally regarded as very political, the current administration has broken with tradition and retained the old guard at the helm of the board, offering continuity. Nor was the appointment of new members simply an effort to replace the old with the new as more than half of the previous UDP board had already left for a catalogue of reasons, from criminal charges to illness.

The new list of board members was published in Extraordinary Gazette No.26/2014 on Wednesday 16 April and posted on the government website and attached below this article.

As anticipated by government, the change in the law has seen a decline in applications since October. In the last quarter of 2013 the PR board processed 433 applications, compared to 679 in the final quarter of 2012 and the lowest number compared to every other quarter through 2013. The figures for the first quarter of 2014 when they are published are expected to be even lower.

All overseas workers are now able to stay for more than eight years and make an application for PR. The amendments to the law, which came into effect in October, eliminated the earlier seven year term limit and key employee hurdle, which prevented access to the PR application for workers who did not break the rollover barrier. Now all work permit holders can stay long enough to make a PR application but that application process has been made tougher and more costly.

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Due to the size of your population the outcome of any decision will be tainted in ones mind

    this is why the jury system is also messed up in cayman It only takes one cousin to free a killer

    It would be easy for me to say that i dont like that man and let those feelings hurt another

    The only solution that i see is to have decisions made  with only the facts presented no name or face

     

    Just like the bubble tests taken in schools you either pass or dont

    It is sad that this will not happen ever because it would deminish the power of your rulers

     

  2. Anonymous says:

    Is it true that as much as 20 applications for Residency are being approved weekly? The Public would like some clarity on this.

  3. Anonymous says:

    The rules are usually not properly followed anyhow, so it only makes sense to appoint people of good commonsense and eyes for good people that will serve on this very important board. A very intelligent and good serving lady was Mrs Berna Murphy. Lets get her back on board. She knows everyone which is most im portant when sitting on boards. Cause the point system is sh.t. People just fake doing community work until their application is dealt with. There are very important people on this Island who acquired Residency and very wealthy such as Lawyers and Partners who are making their children suffer. These are people that should not be residing here even on work permits.

  4. Anonymous says:

    "With the backlog of applications prior to the change in the law now settled" – well that's interesting.  I know of at least five people who applied for PR before the law change in October and who have yet to hear the outcome of their applications.  

  5. Anonymous says:

    "Meet the new boss ….. Same as the old boss" : Pete Townsend, 1977

  6. Anonymous says:

    The new, extremely complicated point system for permanent residency is  designed for either of two things :

    1) make it almost impossible for long term residents to attain permanent residency 

                                                                 or

    2) Showup the inadequacy of the brains behind those that make policies in this country.

    It is so complicated that even the Caymanian Status and Permanent Residence Board are clueless as to how to go about accessing those applications.  

    Time and time again Cayman legislators have made a mess of solving the country's immigration problems. Rather than puting systems in place that can actually work, they create more problems.

    First we had too many long term residents that had no security of tenure. The Big Mac fix was to give out thousands of Statuses indescriminately. To prevent that situation from happening again they instituted the roll-over policy. It was soon determined that such a system was not well thought out and needed changes.Then even with those changes the roll over policy was still a problem. So it was determined that we needed to scrap the roll-over altogether and make a new point system. Now this system is so complicated that nobody can figure out how to apply it to an application. 

    I just wished we had elected officials with brains  to run this country properly. So far we keep electing a bunch of 'blind mice' as in the nursery rhyme "three blind mice, see how they run …."

    • Anonymous says:

      The real issue here is the voters now isn't it!

    • Anonymous says:

      "The Big Mac fix was to give out thousands of Statuses indescriminately. To prevent that situation from happening again they instituted the roll-over policy".

      This is a common misconception that is so often repeated people have started to believe that it is true. You fill find that McKeeva did both things – give out thousands of status grants and introduce term limits into the Immigration Law. The Immigration Law, 2003, which introduced term limits, was enacted in 2003 at about the same time as the status grants were being done. 

      • Anonymous says:

        Macs status grants were irresponsible handouts to economic dependants just so he could get their votes. He has done immeasurable harm to Cayman and the treasury who now have to support these people and their unemployable children and children's children.