Meetings planned to explain immigration reform
(CNS): Government will be talking to the people about what have become controversial plans to overhaul immigration by removing the key employee designation and essentially pushing rollover beyond the PR application process. With the potential regularization of more than 1500 foreign workers who would have been rolled over had they not received the Term Limit Exemption Permits, at a time of growing local employment, the new government has encountered some resistance to its plans despite campaigning on a platform of change during the run up to the May General election. With a demonstration planned against the immigration amendment bill for 11 October the government is planning a series of town hall meetings starting in West Bay.
According to a release from the premier’s office the meetings will “help constituents and residents understand the proposals being made in Immigration Reforms,” it stated.
The employment initiatives under way to get Caymanians in to work will also be discussed at the public meetings which will start in the District of West Bay at 7pm Tuesday, 8 October at the John A. Cumber School Hall and the public is urged to attend.
Officials said meetings in the remaining Districts will be announced as dates are set.
Category: Politics
Allow a couple of large CASINO developments to be built in Cayman and this could offer employment for several hundred Caymanians. The ultimate best benefit, could be potential
profit sharing payments to true blooded Caymanians. The many "paper Caymanians" would not qualify for profit sharing. Profit sharing payments could amount to TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR EACH BLOOD LINE CAYMANIAN FAMILY !!! They would not need to work. If they did want to work and were able to work, the CASINO would pay incredibly high saleries to true blooded Caymanians. Could you imagine getting paid $5,000.00 dollars per month to sweep floors 5 days a week? It happens in CASINOS in the USA for true blooded American Indians. The Indians host the large CASINO corporations on their property, just as Camanians could host the CASINO corporations on THEIR ISLAND. The CASINO corporations are willing to pay out large for this privilege . The service industry dose not look so bad if you are getting well paid.
This would also attract more tourists and is a WIN WIN SITUATION.
WAKE UP CAYMAN !!!!
This is not so far removed from a suggestion made to the Compass 5 years ago – that a certain proportion of Government revenues should go to a special fund whose shareholders would be "true blooded Caymanians". Each year the fund would declare a dividend, and each Caymanian would get a healthy payout sufficient that they could live comfortably without working. Government would remove the requirement to employ a Caymanian (since Caymanians would have no need to work), but would keep the permit fees tomaximise revenues. The civil service could be reduced, as Caymanians unable to secure work in the private sector could rely on their dividend income and would not need an employment safety net from the government. Caymanian shareholders would in fact have every incentive to encourage Government to maximise the dividend fund by reducing expenditure on the civil service. Caymanians would not complain about expat workers, as a percentage of every permit fee would go directly to them. Business could hire who they wanted as long as they paid a fee. Everyone would be happy!
Of course, both this and your post assume "true blooded Caymanians" actually want to be treated as a group who need positive discrimination and to be reliant on handouts and wages completely out of sync with the real world. And the comparison to native Americans is an unfortunate one – not sure many of us would want the lifestyles of the average "reservation" inhabitant, casino handouts or otherwise.
When you consider the existing problems we have with a large group of younger Caymanians already detached from normal societal commitments to hard work and committed to the apparently easy life of earnings from crime, suggesting that our unemployment problems and the social problems we already have can be cured by introducing gambling and giving some of the immoral profits from it to the bloodline population seems to be short sighted at best.
CAYMANIANS DO NOT WANT THESE JOBS!!!!!!!!!! its as simple as that. out of the 1500 jobs (most being low paid domestic jobs), i would be SHOCKED!!! if more than 150 (10%) would be atractive for caymanians. We want better jobs. So you can say what you like, but there is no way to get rid of all these expats, we need them to fill the jobs that locals dont want to do. And we are not alone in the world. The sates have something like 30 milliion illegal expats, that pick their frutis, work in slotter houses, jobs the the citizens dont want. we are no different here
Thus proving Caymanian unemployment is a myth.
Dear PPM
How does this law help Caymanians? What is the reasons behind this shift and extension from 7 to 9 years? Nobody can be guranteed a job in the current environment Caymanian or expatriate so what is the logic behind this?
How come you did not fix the laws to mandate payment of PR fees when you were in last in power? Some have served as MLA's for over 3 terms, what were the veterans doing?
These laws are going to far. We do not need to offer a chance at residency for the TELP's. 900 of those jobs are gardeners, and domestics. There are 900 other people in those work permit holders countries of origin who are lined up to fill those kind of jobs. The Premier himself said Caymanians do not want those jobs.
What we need is more jobs, expanding into new industries and training the local population to fill them. This starts at the primary school level. If are going to play in the international world we have to start thinking internationaly not locally. We need outside expertise and denying permits for people already working in the finanical, and legal industries is the wrong plan. I am hearing a lot of this. When an accounting firm says they need people with a CA, ACCA, or similar, they need people with those designations for liability purposes. Same with all other industries. When the employment board sends a bookkeeper who has worked for a small company they will not have the designations and experience required to untake firm level work. This is were continued training comes in.
Reduce the cost of doing business and open the market up. A lot off businesses are feeling under attack from the new government and these new laws. People forget that it is already law that you have to put in an AD for a work permit or renewal. Nothing newthere. But why change laws regarding to people who are appealing refusals if they are already on island working. This creates major continuity of business issues.
Also the government needs to regularize people who have been here for 10, 15 years who do not have PR or Status. These people are family and friends of Caymanians and Status holders.This will be a major legalissue if not addressed. These people are all pre- IVAN or arrived in the late 90's.
And your last paragraph is why we need the roll-over. If we don't have it every decade or so we will end up with a mass status grant. Cayman cannot support untrameled, unplaned, growth in that manner.
We havent gone no way yet and every morning that we awake you can just sit and wait for the night happenings. Cant we read at all/ All this crime has speedily crept up on us because of the unemployment rate, and not to mention the flooding population. Then last but not least the melting and mixing pot has not been turning out good youngsters. Too late, too late,too late..
This is a good thing atleast immigration will be able to explain th the public the pros and cons of the immigration reform.
Hahaha after the fact. What will they tell us — that the Immigration bill is harmless and will help keep Caymanians out of jobs, by allowing these 1500 to apply for PR. You can be sure some will get average of those granted who apply for PR greater than 60% so at least 1000 will get PR and status and stay emplyed in Cayman for the next thirty years keppiing Caymanians from getting these jobs, Oh silly me they will be Caymanian when they get Status in two to three years so the jobs will they be occupied by Caymanians.
I call this DOOMSDAY for the Cayman Islands…
No, Doomsday was in 2003. It is the natural impact of that which has us where weare. We now have to change entirely if we are to survive. The Caymanian culture will be a memory – but we have no choice. I lament that our politicians were either too dumb to see the eventual consequences of arbitrarily creating 10,000 Caymanians without checks or balances, or too corrupt or incompetent to do anything to fix it.
Now it is simply too late.
Today we have thousands of Caymanians who have never and will never make any attempt to assimilate into our culture. Many even deny we have one.
Given the mass importation of poverty which has resulted from the way in which the Cabinet straus grants were handled, together with connected increases in poverty amongst our own people, creating thousands more Caymanians – but this time in a planned manner and drawn only from the wealthy, is the only option we have left.
Get used to it. Embrace it, or get out of the way.
Try reading the rules for getting PR. No way will anyone without extensive links to Cayman ie family and/or a hell of a lot of money get it. You have no basis at all for assuming there will be 1000 additional Caymanians from this. However, if you do not allow people who have been here for 9 years to at least apply, then you DO have a very real chance of a human rights application and them ALL getting it.
The PPM is doing some housekeeping consequent on people not being rolled two years ago – the PR application route will in fact be tougher rather than easier. As for generating Caymanian jobs – do you honestly think that if all 1500 are sent home it will make any difference at all? – there is a reason Caymanians are not already doing those jobs, and changing the rules on rollover and PR do not address those core issues one little bit.