WORC rounds up illegal workers on 7MB
(CNS): Four people were arrested for immigration-related offences last Wednesday, 23 November, after a raid at Seven Mile Public Beach by the Compliance Unit of Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC), the Department of Commerce and Investment (DCI) and the RCIPS. Three people were arrested for working without work permits and one was handed over to Customs and Border Control (CBC) for overstaying, WORC said in a release.
With a reduced number of serviced premises along Seven Mile Beach, vendors have been cashing in on cruise passengers since the borders reopened, giving rise to mounting concerns about unlicensed trading, the illegal sale of alcohol and overcrowding due to the number of beach chairs.
WORC said that this search was based on information received by the Department of Tourism and other government agencies regarding various potentially illegal practices at the location.
Following the arrests, corresponding investigations are active, with lines of inquiry and questioning of suspects ongoing, the release stated. Deputy Director of Compliance Mervin Manderson said WORC intends to continue with these collaborative operations in relation to immigration law.
“WORC remains committed to protecting Caymanians by bringing offenders to justice,” he said. “I invite the public to continue to submit information about such illegal activities to our WORC complaints email address on the WORC website. I encourage employers and employees to take warning from these incidents and do the right thing, get themselves regularised and in compliance with the Immigration Transition Act.”
Border Control and Labour Minister Chris Saunders applauded the Compliance Unit and offered his support for conducting these joint operations and investigating suspected breaches of the laws.
“I have said before, and I will say again, that disregard for our immigration laws will not be tolerated on my watch,” Saunders said. “Enforcement operations will continue to detect, investigate and prosecute any further breaches. While in the past we have implored employers to comply, we are now expecting compliance and cracking down on all those who continue to disrespect the laws of the Cayman Islands.”
Breaches of the Immigration Transition Act may be reported anonymously here
or by emailing worccomplaints@gov.ky.
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Category: Border Control, Crime, Immigration, Police
It started with the inflatable city in the water. At the time, they were warned at the time that this would be the end result. They didn’t listen. End of story.
Not didn’t listen. Didn’t care. Certain West Bay politician had constituency friends who wanted public beach for commercial operations – end of story.
WB Public Beach is one our main tourist attractions – a Government created Zoo!
“WORC remains committed to protecting Caymanians by bringing offenders to justice,” indeed, now let’s post those jobs and see the applicants. Working in the sun in the sand, I can tell you what applicants you won’t have applying
I’m not caymanian and I’m offended by this comment. don’t paint them all with the same brush.
While you may be offended, it is still the truth. Horrible drivers may also be offended by being called horrible drivers.
Definitely would not see any Caymanian in the sun. smh
What about the Caymanians working the beach with no Trade and Business license. What about them?
illegal
Mac told them all it would be OK..
You don’t get it. THERE ARE NO JOBS THERE! There are no licensed employers and no premises to operate from.
That would make it doubly illegal! Do we have police or not?
If you had knowledge of Caymanians trading without the appropriate license why did you not report it to WORC before this operation ?
You mean report to DCI.
Well, it seems like Worc (Compliance Unit) can only find illegal workers, if someone gives them a tip.
It’s time that they get off their butts, get out of the ac, and look for those illegal workers.
Also, stop giving people work permits – if they don’t have valid contracts for the people that they are taking out permits for.
how typical and an American approach. Arrest the poor people and let the wealthy of our country who exploit them keep doing it.
By law you shouldn’t be here if you can’t legally support yourself and/or family.
We must be the only country in the world right now where you can turn up and with the minimum of scrutiny start looking for work hanging around legally waiting for the slim pickings available
Every country right now is doing everything to stop what we actually turn a blind eye to
Why is this it makes no sense at all why does a maintenance man a gardener a domestic helper need a 3 month temporary permit are we that desperate we may lose them the answer is no
You can get alot more if WORC looks harder.
HINT:: There are alot of persons, especially these PR recipients who own multiple MICRO BUSINESSES.
These “Businesses” are a front. They are used to obtain WP for people who have to go out and “FIND” their own work. They have to pay the WP “Employer” a percentage of what they make every week. The employee also has to pay for their own WP, Health Insurance and Pension (most of the time these are in arrears and are a tell tale sign of this scam).
I know of one expat, married to a Caymanian (she works at WORC), who has 5 so called businesses (mobile car wash, construction, tiling, electronic repair and cleaning) with no offices (or even advertisements) where the WP “employees” have to pay him every friday.
Its all a scam. They found a way to beat the system.
Need to do what some of the other Caribbean Islands have done and put the WP costs at a point where an “employee” cannot afford to pay it (one island has it at 6000us across the board because they already dealt with the same situation) and the positive to this was that LOCALS got first preference which decreased unemployment.
They had the unscrupulous businesses complaining that the “LOCALS” don’t want to work crap, and they were gonna leave tactic. But low and behold that never happened and in fact the Island is better off now as proven.
What is OUR MLA’s gonna do???? Suck ass until it personally affects them?????
Now imagine supermarket prices, as a fast example, when every wp of those who pack shelves for you there, so you shop at your convenience, costs … 6000 USD ? Some of you are so xenophobic that you keep coming with all kind of hateful nonsense just out of spite. Just think about who is going to bare that cost. How many locals do you have available to fill all the necessary positions? That, provided, they are willing to take and keep those jobs.
So what do you say ?
The fact is that the supermarkets are over staffed with cheap labor next time you go in just see how many are in there on a double shift system compared to a uk USA or Canadian supermarket
Yes Caymanians did work in supermarkets but just like every other business the owners flooded it with cheap labor from the Philippines and jamaica and now India
Many Many people have started out stacking shelves in life but there is no way our young Caymanians can compete with the permit workers
Please support Caymanian owned small businesses.
The government was generous at one time when they called the Caymanians in the community to pitch their business ideas and receive sponsorship.
I am going to make sure my workers are paid well, have access to benefits. They will get good recognition for upholding good company values; Moreover, making it priority to use clean energy.
As far as housing some,
I am one local that will
provide both affordable and upscale living space.
When I get the business running, it will take your help to make the other vision come true.
Sponsorship will not be possible unless those generously invested will contribute to the business start-up essentials.
Sorry i have to disagree with the following statement.
Need to do what some of the other Caribbean Islands have done and put the WP costs at a point where an “employee” cannot afford to pay it (one island has it at 6000us across the board because they already dealt with the same situation) and the positive to this was that LOCALS got first preference which decreased unemployment.
To begin with $6,000.00 for a simple permit is ridiculous. Second i am sick of hearing about how locals get screwed out of jobs. The is probably the worst FACT i have read on this topic. There is a saying. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink it. Any local that truly wants to be employed on this island is employed. The rest run around and claim they can’t get a job or hold a job. The Fact is you have to get up in the morning be one time. Most don’t want to do that. Everyone complains about wages being too low and expats stealing the jobs. I have yet to see an expat living under palm trees. They pay rent and live comfortably on the island.
BULLSHIT!
You are wrong on so many levels. The treatment of locals is atrocious. Whole industries have literally conspired to exclude Caymanians in their own land.
And by the way. Some people here have work permits costing $30,000, so $6,000 is nothing.
Yes and those $30,000 WP fees are ultimately paid by the major onshore clients of those law and accounting firms. Where as we pay the WP fees of shop staff, cleaners, gardeners etc. It’s a stupid idea.
Which industries are those?
WORC is going to solve the problem of illegal vendors and overstayers by hiring them all for Christmas clean-up. Three weeks pay without having to do anything.
They need to do that every day.
the people on probation or low risk prisoners should! aggressive driving fines with public service is a start too.
You cannot apply for a job with WORC if your work permit is expired.
Take a look at the application form.
It is also illegal to forge
a work permit.
Thank God it’s illegal. I’m glad this exact thing will never happen again. You know, because it’s illegal.
Thank god for laws.
If guest workers are flying here with an entry date and time, and there is a permit file with a defined expiry date and corresponding name and address, then it should be easy to set up a rule to flag overstayers, and pay them a visit, long before they set up a business on SMB. It’s not the overstayers that are being lazy in this equation.
Imagine believing the Jamaicans, Hondurans and Filipinos are anywhere NEAR the residency on their permit applications lmao.
Oh, my sweet summer child.
Headline should be WORC finally does it’s job. So is this a flashy politically driven one off event or will WORC and CBC be out on this site everyday?
DCI too.
Does its job? 4 illegal workers? You or I could pick up way more than that just trawling Eastern Avenue in the morning pretending we were picking up day labourers. They are doing their job as about efficiently as RCIPS does tickets for tint and road tax.
Yes! Now make sure to prosecute the employers too or they will just do the same again is there is no penalty.
There is a penalty for the employer too.
There is meant to be. Do you see any mention of employers of these 4 being prosecuted? No – we are meant to assume these are all self employed illegals.
They should be black listed.
Every business there is by definition an illegal activity. Why was no one arrested for breaching trade and business rules, Caymanian participation rules, pension rules, minimum wage rules, health insurance rules, employing a person without a work permit rules?
We get accused of unequally applying laws every day, and every day we prove our accusers right.
We are inept AND corrupt. Round up the usual suspects but let their employers and enablers be. Don’t do anything to acknowledge that crime is defined as something other than what desperate Jamaicans do outside of their immigration permissions. Above all, do not allow any any civil servants be perceived as responsible for the #shitshow, or indeed, anything.
bunch of bullshit….I am a Caymanian CPA that can’t get promoted as company continues to hire their friends….recently hiring one and then having to promote him immediatelyto match former employers retention offer. Thanks for ditch digging jobs Alldumb and Squanders.
In my personal experience going before Labour Board does no good.
all it does is liable you as trouble maker…same with applying for new jobs on WORC site….problem started with PPM and continues with PACT….priority is now financial service work permit fees and not Caymanian opportunity. CIG is full of stupid greedy men.
It started with UDP not PPM. However PPM didn’t nip it in the bud and actually lowered Small business fees to help Caymanians. So now the Jaymanians can take out 6 licenses instead of 2.
3.32 The labour and Immigration boards were picked by Saunders.
Maybe you are not as good, experienced, or have a professional attitude? It is a possibility.
At $6/hr, Caymanians are luring foreign workers with way more permits than there is work available. Once these poor folks get here, they realise they were hosed, and have to improvise. Raising the minimum wage would scrap thousands of sketchy permit files, all of which were submitted by unscrupulous Caymanian holders.
100% correct on this 100s on bogus permits overstayers working whilst the next temp is approved it’s been open season for too long we’ll done WORC but surely immigration should be able to see this a mile off
I am happy to see the Government is finally cleaning up people working on island illegally. However, I believe most if not all are working for someone else. What are they doing to those that are hiring these people and promoting this. Its sad that people must rat out others before the Government employees will go out and do what they get paid to do. There are all kinds of illegal trade and admission charges to the beach on 7M.
Why not visit the big construction projects? Are they protected?
Probably didn’t make my point clear. It appears they aren’t visiting anywhere unless some “Rats” them out. Unfortunate people are hired to do a job they don’t do.
Sure, arrest the vendors on the beach – low hanging fruit. But I will believe Chris is serious when I see the prosecution of their employers; damn sure all those sun loungers and jet skis were provided by someone and not owned by the guys hawking them to the tourists.
Not much “low hanging fruit” either. Wonder if any “favored persons” were tipped off in advance?
Now check all these “skilled professionals” in the construction business….
That one will never happen
What nationality are the people who employed them and hold their permits?
3 56pm Jaymanians.
And they will have committed offenses made possible by or facilitated by their status grants, and if our laws were actually followed, could face revocation of status, fines and imprisonment, and deportation.
So the illegal vendors are employing overstayers and not getting permits for their employees?? Hmm,imagine that, seems there should be some other charges being pressed….No?
Do it every day.
4?…is this a joke?