Solid foundation to becoming Caymanian
Nick Joseph writes: A recent article extolling the real problems faced by many in demonstrating that they are in fact (and remain) Caymanian — and emphasising that the law as written created some truly mind-bending scenarios — seems to have elicited significant comment and discussion. Some of the commentary acknowledged what was said, and then raised the challenge: How do we fix it?
Fair enough. For fix it we must. But solutions require us to understand the problem.
Speaking truth to power does not always work. At least not to begin with. Whether confronting an excessive fondness for rum, an abusive spouse, a dishonest preacher or sea level rise, denial is usually the first solution that humanity reaches for. It is too often a necessary stage of the process on the road to redemption.
No matter what else we did, granting status in 2003 to thousands of largely unvetted (although frequently deserving) persons was always going to create cracks. Consistently pouring hundreds of new people into those cracks with a failing (and in many respects arbitrary and unlawfully operated) Permanent Residence scheme, effectively disregarding any question of assimilation, economic stability or Caymanian Protection and doing it year after year, was, like a freeze/thaw cycle familiar to those from colder climes, always going to fracture the very foundation on which we all stand.
Fractured enough, the heartiest of bedrock will turn to gravel, then to sand — and thence, ultimately, to dust.
The foundations, built by Mr Benson, Captain Charles, Dr Roy, Miss Sybil, significant numbers of seafarers, the resilient women they left behind (and topped off by an Arch or two later accompanied by a Godfrey), and many others, were solid. They were a Rock. He hath founded it upon the seas, and upon that Rock was modern Cayman built.
Like every society, we are entitled to our own creation story. The persons named above (and hundreds of others, Caymanian and expatriate) constitute a critical part of ours.
“Caymanian” is the equivalent of a nationality. Strictly, it is an immigration status and is not, on any analysis, a citizenship. As described most eloquently by the late Mr Benson Ebanks in presenting the Caymanian Protection Law to the (then) Legislative Assembly on 27 September, 1971 (in reference to the term “Caymanian”), “[W]e are not really conferring a nationality on ourselves; this is impossible; we’re all citizens of the British Commonwealth that is the United Kingdom and Colonies and this is merely a label which will enable us to control certain activities within our own shores.”
Indeed, the legislation prescribed that to become Caymanian (i.e. to be granted Caymanian Status), you had to first be a British Subject — in Mr Benson’s words, “first and foremost a British Subject”. It made sense. We could hardly have had Caymanians singing “God Save the Queen” as our National Anthem and not have them entitled to some passport or other issued by or on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.
“British Subject” appeared capable of being interpreted widely and incorporating any citizenship that owed allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. That was fine for Commonwealth Citizens, but of course, meant that Americans could not become Caymanians. Since that was somewhat problematic for citizens of our largest trading partner (and source of tourists and cash to buy real estate, and perhaps pay real estate commissions), we amended our Caymanian Protection Law in 1984 to allow Americans (and citizens of Ireland, any British Dependent Territory, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, and Trinidad and Tobago) to apply to become Caymanian.
This coincided (or at least followed shortly after) with the UK tightening the rules around British Subjects and the creation of the concept of British Citizenship, occurring with the coming into force of the British Nationality Act on 1 January 1983. That Act confirmed six types of British Nationality, with British Citizenship being the only one granting an automatic right of abode in the United Kingdom.
For some years following, standard language in letters from the Department of Immigration confirming persons to be Caymanian provided:
“If you hold or acquire a passport giving you nationality as a British Subject Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or British Citizen of the British Dependent Territories you may have an endorsement placed therein indicating that you are also a person of Caymanian Status. The endorsement can be obtained by presenting your passport at this office together with this letter.
“I regret to advise you that such an endorsement cannot be placed in the passports of other countries and if you wish to travel on a non-British passport it is suggested that for your convenience you carry this letter together with your passport to facilitate travel to and from the Cayman Islands.”
British Dependent Territories Citizenship was renamed British Overseas Territories Citizenship in 2002. Persons who were already British Dependent Territories Citizens on 21 May 2002 automatically became BOTH British Overseas Territories Citizens AND British Citizens on that date.
By the time of the 2003 (in)famous Cabinet status grants (to many clearly deserving and some clearly not), we lost track of the whole suggestion that you had to be any one of the six types of British Nationality (or what was formally described as an “eligible person”) to become Caymanian. No regard was had to the citizenship of the 2,850 direct recipients, nor does it seem was appropriate regard given to a great many of their dependents.
The result was that thousands of persons became Caymanian almost overnight, without anyone asking: are they (at some level) British? Many were not. The immediate consequence was that for the first time, many people who were not entitled to British Overseas Territory (Cayman) (or British) Passports, and in any event owed no allegiance to the Queen, became Caymanian.
Sorry, Mr Benson.
History is history, and it is often not good. Hindsight would prefer that we had approached the response to a period of mistreatment and failure to fairly consider applicants differently. The Cabinet Status grants were mis-described as a necessary solution following years of an unlawful moratorium on the processing of status applications.
They were NOT necessary. Alternatives existed and, in fact, were used. The Gazette naming the Cabinet status recipients also reveals that the Caymanian Status and Permanent Residency Board granted status to some 102 other persons in the same period. It appears that one group was fully vetted, whilst the other, frankly, was not. (Yes, I know hundreds lined up at the RCIPS for their police records, but by then the deed had been done. The statuses had already been granted with no regard to what the RCIPS knew — or said — about an individual).
The fact that so many became Caymanian without having some level of British Citizenship did not matter until election time, when it was realised that many hundreds of persons who had recently been made Caymanian could not register to vote. This is because the then Elections Law (by then) required almost all voters not born in Cayman to have BOT Citizenship (whether by connection to the Cayman Islands or to anywhere else) to register.
Some of the newly minted Caymanians seeking to apply for Naturalisation to become BOTCs by virtue of their “connection” with the Cayman Islands were being stymied in their attempts to be naturalised on the basis that they had not yet lived in Cayman for the prescribed five years, not been settled for at least one year, or in some cases had criminal records pre-dating their grant of status. I was the recipient of a number of frustrated calls. There was nothing I could do to help the callers (and did not hesitate to tell them so).
Some may ask, what was the point in granting status to someone if they could not thank you at the polls?
The solution was elegant. Change the Constitution in a manner that defined who could vote, without any separate need to debate and amend the Elections Law. In doing so, any Caymanian over the age of 18 could vote, even if they did not have British Overseas Territory Citizenship and were thus ineligible to hold a Cayman Passport.
Then, the next big issue arose: What about the children?
Hundreds of persons who did not qualify to be dependents of work permit holders were nevertheless allowed into Cayman as one of their parents had become Caymanian. Many were permitted to attend a quickly overburdened government school system (itself already recovering from Hurricane Ivan) and after a year in Cayman were often acknowledged to be Caymanian by Entitlement on the basis they were under the age of 18, the child of a Caymanian, and had been legally and ordinarily resident in the Islands for at least a year.
You read that correctly. One year of residence is all it took.
Of course, all these children (as with all persons who are Caymanian by Entitlement) would have to leave Cayman or apply for continuation of their status on turning 18. Some made the required application and were (quite properly) refused on the basis that they had not (by then) lived (legally and ordinarily) in Cayman for five of the seven years preceding their 18th birthday. They were sometimes required to leave.
Others stayed but did not apply for continuation. Many of those former Caymanians “by Entitlement” appear to have simply been able to continue living and working here and have become among our “Ghost Caymanians”.
Notwithstanding that this issue has been well known for many years, “Ghost Caymanians” are still a problem, although we are seeing increased efforts to require Caymanians to demonstrate that they are Caymanian. Of course, the National ID scheme will provide an inflexion point for those whose “undocumented” presence has been tolerated (potentially even assisted) for so long. There will undoubtedly have to be yet more, in effect, freely distributed permissions.
This time, I would beg, start off with Permanent Residence rather than heading straight to the most sacred of permissions: the Right to be Caymanian. Let’s hope we don’t find too many Ghosts registered to vote (or owning more than 40% of local businesses, or holding a scholarship, or working without a work permit, or being the “Caymanian” spouse of an RERC holder).
If we are in a hole, rule number 1: STOP DIGGING! Enforce the law AND the principles underpinning it. The society we inherit and construct must fit the foundation laid for it. If it does not, it will surely fall out of balance and ultimately topple. It is only by not consistently following our own laws (again and again) that we seem to find ourselves in many of our quagmires.
First, we need an accurate list of all the people living here who are already Caymanian. Incredibly, we do not. If we did, it wouldn’t be taking weeks for many Caymanians to seek and obtain formal acknowledgement of that fact, sometimes decades after they were born in or moved to Cayman, and we would not have the Department of WORC deferring a number of applications for “further evidence” that referees are Caymanian.
Second, we need to ensure that every agency and department of both the public and private sectors stop being allowed to exercise their own discretion/preference as to who is Caymanian relative to who is not. Aside from those caught in the Schrodinger Paradox, you are either Caymanian or not. The distinctions are clear.
Third, we need to clarify and rationalise the path to becoming Caymanian and make accommodation for those that have fallen into any cracks.
Fourth, we need to seal the cracks!
For persons who are not born Caymanian and who do not become Caymanian as children, we now have two distinct routes to become Caymanian (not including Cabinet Status grants or claims to be Caymanian based on descent).
They require marriage to a Caymanian for seven years (but amazingly, none of those years need be in Cayman), OR five years of residence (including at least one year as a Permanent Resident) followed by Naturalisation or Registration as a BOTC, and THEN a further five years of residence post Naturalisation or Registration. The reality is that for most, the Naturalisation option requires at least 15 years in Cayman, given that an application for PR cannot be made in most cases unless the applicant has been legally and ordinarily resident in the Islands for eight years.
The British Nationality Act (under which persons are vetted to become a BOTC) is thorough, and, for example, will generally not permit persons of bad character or for whom the Cayman Islands are not a person’s genuine home to advance to BOT Citizenship. It can be a very useful filter.
We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Permanent Residence is, in effect, available to all who marry Caymanians, all who marry Permanent Residents, all who pass through the eight-year points system, all who are the dependent children of a Permanent Resident and who are in Cayman as approved dependents for at least seven years before turning 18, and all who invest more than CI$2 million in developed real estate and pay CI$100,000 to the government.
If we simply required all applicants for the Right to be Caymanian to first be Naturalised or Registered as BOTCs, we would free ourselves from the problem of having thousands of Caymanians unable to hold a Cayman Passport, have additional vetting and security as to who we are making Caymanian, and significantly simplify our immigration (and border control) systems. Imagine how easy it could be to simply have a stamp in everyone’s passport denoting their immigration status!
The idea of being a BOTC on the path to becoming Caymanian is not a new idea or even my own. It was expressed (and invoked) by Mr Benson Ebanks more than 50 years ago. It was sound advice then — and we should not be hesitating to follow it now.
Were we to do so, we would again have a solid foundation to take whatever next steps the Caymanian people deem appropriate.
Nick Joseph is a partner at HSM
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Category: Viewpoint
It happened at an interval between the Sun and the Moon. Rules began to exist about who can live in this world as Caymanian. Yet, long ago, the rules used to say that you had to have a British passport first. Later, the rules changed, and some people got Caymanian status without having a British passport. This caused problems. Those problems emerged, like all problems, at an interval between the Sun and the Moon. Now, some people live considered Caymanian but can’t get a Cayman Islands passport. The rules need to become fixed. Some would say, so fixed, the rules cannot ever become changed. One idea that interests us encourages us to go back to the old way – you should get a British passport first before you can become Caymanian. This would help make sure only the right people become Caymanian. The rules need to become improved and followed so Caymanian status gains value and remains protected, even at a new interval between the Sun and the Moon.
There has to be a limit on who can become Caymanian. New Caymanians know nothing about the culture, history, not to mention how to cook our food. Ask any new caymanians who did not gain status by marriage of by family connection to name 5 multi- generation Caymanians they know personally outside of work) and they can’t do it.
Why is this important? This is important because it shows you well they have intregated into the true Cayman society. You are not going to learn feel, understand and appreciate what we have. They don’t know one seaman.
Brilliant and well researched I might add. This is way to logical for CIG to implement or understand. One, question if you are a “Ghost Caymanian” what type of passport do you hold so that you can travel overseas and return?
The passport of their citizenship. A Jamaican, or American, or Honduran or German born in Cayman is no less Jamaican, American, Honduran or German by virtue of being born outside their homeland.
If they were born elsewhere, they will already hold a passport for a foreign country – and will have used it to enter Cayman.
Every country has a mechanism for their citizen’s births to be registered, even if they are born abroad.
In the rare circumstances where a foreign national is here and cannot a passport from their home country, the Office of the Governor can issue an internationally accepted “Travel Document” to facilitate the travel of the individual affected to their home country.
If they are a Ghost they have no clear legal right to be in or return to Cayman.
At present, thousands of persons (including some ghosts) who are NOT Caymanian, hold Cayman Passports.
Similarly, there are Caymanians that hold passports from all over the world, and do not have, and cannot get, BOTC (Cayman) Passports.
It is a total mess.
To “extol”, used in your first sentence, means to praise enthusiastically … not what you intended, I suspect.
Irony. It can be a thing. But point taken.
Great article, Nick, but I couldn’t help notice the missing word in the subtext: Jamaican. If speaking truth is a necessary step in redemption, let’s not pretend much of the angst caused by the 2003 Cabinet Status grants is related to the masses of Jamaicans that were able to gain some sort of Caymanian status (ghost or otherwise) as a result. I’m not trying to be bigoted here – there are many Jamaicans who deserved status and who have become contributing members of our society. But the shear numbers of Jamaicans who obtained status either through the Cabinet Status grants or subsequently through entitlement is what had created so much of the social and infrastructural stress on the system. All that said, your suggestion that we default to Mr. Benson’s concept of being British or BOTC citizens first makes practical sense.
People who are married to Caymanians and living outside of the Cayman Islands shouldn’t be allowed to get Caymanian status. Americans don’t give it away. Why should we?
I know at least two couples that the wives don’t live in the Cayman Islands most of the time and the husband is here. Matter of fact, I think one has been gone for years. I hope they don’t give her status.
Unfortunately quite a few Caymanian girls give it away, and their boyfriends can use the resulting anchor baby as their ticket to residence and NAU.
The problem with this is that my husband is Caymanian, we’ve been married for 35 years. However I do not have a right to live in Cayman with him. I am only granted a visitor visa on arrival and can stay a max of 6 months a year. So I applied for my own status as the wife of a Caymanian while I was on the island, and then had to leave again and now cannot return until my status is granted. He continues to live here, and I am forced to stay away while I wait 2 years + for my application to be heard. Its unjust to keep married couples apart this way.
CNS: Why didn’t you apply for a Residency and Employments Rights Certificate (RERC) for the spouse of a Caymanian? You have to live here for a period to gain status. No one is keeping you apart unless the story is bogus or there’s something you’re not telling us.
Wait, what? I can apply for my own status if I have been married to a Caymanian for more than 7 years, even if I am not currently on the island?
That’s not what WORC told me! They said if I wasn’t here I couldn’t qualify.
You have to be a resident when you apply. You however do not have to have been here for 7 years prior.
Correct. Section 28(5)(f) of The Immigration (Transition) Act (2022 Revision).
The person married to a Caymanian for 7 years can legally move to Cayman the day before they apply for status. There is no need for them to have lived in Cayman at all, until the day before they apply.
(f) who is legally and ordinarily resident in the Islands immediately preceding his or her application; and
It gets worse. The Caymanian spouse does not have to have been Caymanian for the 7 years. They themselves may have become Caymanian the day before the expatriate spouse applies to become Caymanian on the basis of marriage to a Caymanian.
How does this happen? Who is writing these laws, and for who?
This is a fair and balanced article, thank you Nick Joseph for the time and effort to put this together.
I believe one of the main issues we have locally is that of PR. If you were to ask some of the expats working currently whether they wish to be a Permanent Resident the answer would be no. The ONLY reason why Expats are going through the PR process is because they like living and working in the Cayman Islands and wish to continue doing so. Over 90% have no wish, desire, or indeed means to reside here as a retiree, as it is, quite simply, too expensive. Even some of my Caymanian friends are planning to retire “off island” as they will not be able to afford the living costs once they have stopped work. PR should be abandoned, if people wish to apply for residency, great, but otherwise just adjust the current WP scheme so there is no limit to how long one can work here.
It is ridiculous for an employer (and I have been one) to have to train employees, have them settled in their role, if after a limited number of years, they have to let that excellent employee leave, as they are not applying for PR and therefore have to leave the island for a year! So, the employer then has to waste time and money on finding another suitable replacement, start to train them, and the circle continues once again.
Please don’t counter with the “Caymanian first” argument. I would have been more than happy to employ local staff, if they were well educated, well skilled, had a strong work ethic, had worldwide experience in the particular field of work they are applying for, but sadly this is not the case for the minority. This is why we have an ever-growing expat work force locally because its catering for a two-tier gap in local workforce capabilities. The lower tier caters for jobs that some Caymanians may feel is beneath them to apply for, the upper tier is for jobs that some Caymanians are simply not qualified or experienced enough to be employed to do.
We all live on a beautiful island. We all want what’s best for the island, and in terms of commerce, the Permanent Resident and Work Permit system is simply preventing the island surging forward, being the best of the best regionally.
If it’s about monetary income for the island (through PR / WP applications etc.) lets be controversial here and throw this out for discussion – why not introduce direct taxation on earnings? We all know that the island portrays itself as a zero-rated income tax island, but the various stealth taxes and ways that monies are generated to make up for this loss of income tax is what is driving up the cost of living locally. Introduce a fair, balanced personal and corporate tax system, and let’s drop these stealth taxes and duties, make the island an affordable place to live for all?
Just some thoughts, please now let rip with your comments!
there are so many highly educated people who’ve given most of their years, and lives to the betterment of Cayman; however, they have been bullied and run off the island. As with all other developing countries, those who are born to power, and them want to take advantage of desperately poor and less educated people to do the hard work for them, and to welcome the rich, I will not watch with the government is doing and runoff all the work in middle income class who do want to build a future here
“why not introduce direct taxation on earnings? We all know that the island portrays itself as a zero-rated income tax island, but the various stealth taxes and ways that monies are generated to make up for this loss of income tax is what is driving up the cost of living locally. Introduce a fair, balanced personal and corporate tax system, and let’s drop these stealth taxes and duties, make the island an affordable place to live for all?”
An excellent article by Nick Joseph – thanks for taking the time to spell things out this way, in such a format that even me could understand it!
And this comment above, is absolutely brilliant in response to the article. This has to be done and the sooner the better. Why are we delaying the inevitable? It will make for a much better and fairer way of life. Let’s have this discussion, please.
Do you have any idea how much money it will cost to draft a fair income tax law, and develop and staff an effective revenue service to collect these revenues? And once the tax revenues start flowing into government, are you aware that the taxation levels never stop going up?
In addition, all of the attraction as a tax free place goes out the window.
So you need a globally qualified, well educated, well skilled person with worldwide experience to wait tables, open doors, clean pools, cut grass and answer questions etc..? That your only gonna end up paying minimum wage in the end? Continue to exploit your “excellent” employees then because Caymanians won’t fall for it.
Mike – we cannot abandon the PR scheme – and let work permit holders remain as long as they like. Our own constitution – and international law – effectively prohibits that.
In effect, if someone is allowed to remain here for more than 10 years – they develop a right to remain forever. This is certainly the case for anyone born here.
That is why we MUST have term limits. Our failure to equally and fairly enforce them is part of the reason we are in this mess.
15/09/2023 at 2:05 pm
I applaud you for the first paragraph of your comments. Indeed I thank Nick Joseph as well for his well thought-out article.
The 4th paragraph of your comments,however, tells the clear story of who you are and your intentions toward employing Caymanians. Your bias against employing Caymanians shouts loudly! You are one of those who use a blanket generalization of the Caymanian workforce as inferior to the “world wide experienced” imported cheap labour you employ, who in many instances are no better qualified, experienced nor possess better work ethic than the Caymanians you condemn. I know this because unlike you I run a successful business with 100% hardworking and reliable Caymanian employees. How so? Because I am careful in my recruiting process and employ an in-house training program to up-skill my Caymanian employees as needed for the good of my company and their own career progression. It’s called commonsense, good business sense, giving a hand-up and simply caring. Go get some, and drop the prejudice.
I don’t want income tax. Property tax is a better option in my opinion. It deters foreign ownership and gets more people to sell vacant property. It also gentrifies areas that are held on by people not progressing the neighborhood. It would give money to housing projects for poor people and take a large percentage out of wealthy peoples pockets rather than the working class.
11:33 am. property tax ? so if someone loses their job then they lose their property for they don’t have the money to pay the tax. Income tax, if loses their job, then no money and no tax. Property tax for these islands will bring them down very fast.
Don’t disagree that the vast majority of expats in the financial services sector don’t want to be life long residents but do want to be able to work here fore more than 9 years if they have the option. However that does not apply to all expats, particularly those from poorer nations. And on top of that, once you allow someone to be here for more than 10 years, irrespective of the fact that they had agreed they would not be resident, you run into a major problem then denying them a path to permanent residence. You can’t get people to opt out from human rights that accrue with long term residence, especially if that opting out was a work permit condition. That was the idea behind the old key employee exception – to limit those here more than I think seven years to those where the employer could demonstrate a genuine need, along with a parallel training program for Caymanians. But like most of our laws never enforced and then abandoned by government as too difficult.
You ask, “Why not introduce direct taxation on earnings.”
Here are some reasons not to do that:
1) Collecting taxes requires an agency to do that. That means increasing the size of government – substantially.
2) A tax agency here would be prone to corruption. Just look at what has happened with both Customs and Immigration here.
3) A direct tax would require all employers to keep proper books. Good luck with that. But let’s say it could happen; then the cost of living just went up because business overhead just went up.
4) A direct tax would require all employers deduct the taxes from employee’s wages and THEN pay it over to the tax agency. This hasn’t worked in many cases for pensions and health care. What makes us think it would work for an even bigger chunk of change?
5) Direct taxation would have to be enforced. Look at the enforcement of pension/health insurance violations. They take years if prosecuted at all. But let’s say you could enforce this fairly and efficiently. Well, you better double the size of the court staff and make Northward and Fairbanks multi-storey prisons because there will be a lot of business owners coming for visits. And by the way… those businesses are going to shut down.
6) Many businesses will pay people “under the table” which will create unfair business disadvantages for the companies that play by the rules. This has already happened in construction industry with unlicensed operators. Does anyone think domestics are going to be taxed?
7) Direct taxation will lead to higher business costs, which means a higher cost of living, all while reducing the amount of spendable income a person has. This will increase poverty.
8) The Cayman government has shown again and again that increasing public revenue rarely improves the personal finances of those who need it most. (To be fair, PACT actually did help with the CUC subsidy last year). The extra money made through taxation will just increase pork barrel projects, ego monuments and the number of perks/jollies politicians and civil servants get.
9) Cayman’s big advantage in recruitment is the fact that people don’t have to pay income tax. Take that away, and Cayman loses it’s competitive talent attraction advantage.
There are really only four forms of taxation that can work well here, three of which are currently in use:
1) Work permit and professional licensing fees.
2) Stamp duty on land transfers
3) Import duties.
The fourth one, which could be implemented from a logistical standpoint without increasing costs too much is property taxes (since the government controls the Land Registry). It could also be implemented in way that impacts the less wealthy. For example, taxes could be assessed on properties values over a certain amount (say $300K, with the first $300 tax-free on properties worth more than that). This way, those who own the most expensive properties (foreign investors on SMB and wealthy locals) pay the most tax. It doesn’t have to be a high amount (0.5%/year) to make a big difference in government revenues. If you can afford a $5M condo or home, you can certainly afford to pay $25K a year in property taxes.
I agree with almost all of what you say other than property taxes. Just because a property has asset value doesn’t mean the owner has any income to pay a tax. At least on income tax, there is or has been income from which to pay.
Thanks Nick. I was one of those asking that you present a solution, and this does indeed read like a very good one.
“Caymanian” is the equivalent of a nationality. Strictly, it is an immigration status and is not, on any analysis, a citizenship.
PREACH IT FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS
Could you repeat that please?
You shouldn’t be here if you can’t read and understand it.
They need to work faster to approve or disqualify status. some of us are on our 3rd payment when we should, legally so, be given status.
Don’t worry. It appears you will shortly be unlawfully deprived of the ability to register to vote. Just have to keep you in limbo for another year, and keep charging you for the privilege.
Kenneth Bryan and DuhWayne Seymour called for an end to Status grants because they know that, the new batch are educated professionals , who may outvote their NAU dependent uneducated supporters..
Without new educated professional entering the voting arena, we are headed to become Jamaica in the hands of Saunders, Kenneth and DuhWayne.
God help Cayman.
They can refund you under Regulation 27 of the Immigration Regulations (2019 Revision) if you’re granted status. Their incompetence an inability to review a document shouldn’t put the applicant, in some cases, 10’s of thousands of dollars out of pocket. The Ombudsman’s office should be notified if they do not refund you.
Umm, wasn’t the Ombudsman the Acting Director of WORC? Did WORC give refunds when she was in charge?
Has anybody received a refund? Would be great to have precedence
That’s a power restricted to cabinet and a power they rarely use.
Agreed, been retired more than 5 years now, still paying for an annual ‘work permit fee’ while they ‘process’ my application for status.
Once we have our status application in, we should no longer be required to pay these annual fees.
Its getting far too obvious to me now that the reason the don’t process my application is so I still have to keep paying every year.
12.16 you do understand that denying status to the deserving enhances Saunders Seymour, Kenny, Mac and Jay’s UDPact chances of re-election.
Suppose 3000 educated professionals are given status, do you think they would tolerate the self serving third world garbage spewed by these people..?
Pretty sure they don’t live in those districts anyways
Yes, that is a stealth effect/purpose of one man one wote.
I dunno Nick, putting in place a simple suggestion like yours seems to un-Caymanian for me. I’d suggest an alternative –
Keep the system as it is, but make all applicants apply on the 8th day of the week. And only then when that 8th weekday falls in a Month without a moon. Once there, each applicant must provide a sample of goats milk from that farm behind her house at the end of the lane.
And before anyone is qualified to get a passport, we must insist them being able to recite the alphabet backwards in a Pirate accent. At dawn. On the end of a plank.
You forgot the bit about riding a donkey from East End to George Town on a full moon being careful to avoid hitting light poles which would count as a disqualification.
A well written Commentary. Many thanks.
If only our politicians would read and understand it!
If only our politicians would be guided , or even inspired, by Nick Joseph’s selfless devotion to the pursuit of what is lawful….then act on it.
May be a stretch, but can we ask the same of all our civil servants? I mean, isn’t that (literally) their job?
Lol. You do know he gets paid, right?
What part of Nick’s suggestion would result in him being paid anything? Does Franz pay him commission?
Is that Nick’s motivation, or might he simply feel and have a personal and professional obligation to help resolve serious problems facing his country?
Not for that, he doesn’t.
Or for his 12 years teaching at Law School.
You should pay closer attention to what motivates him.
He calls it: Cayman
Methinks an OBE is in order for someone like Nick Joseph , who has so consistently served the community for the betterment of Cayman..
So remind me why Steve “sacred vessel” McField is the guy selected to review the immigration regulations rather than Nick. Steve – whose grand conclusion on the boundary review is to rename the constituencies and propose yet more rather than risk offending anyone by consolidating them. Whose commitment to immigration can be seen in his refusal to consider PR or status applications at all whilst he conducts his witch hunt on fake marriages.
7:33, Mr Joseph is a white expat, while Mr MacField is a black born Caymanian who, according to Orett Connor on his show a year or two ago would have been a partner in one of our major law firms if he had been a different color and had been born on the right side of the tracks. Connor’s words not mine. One is an “outsider”, the other “one of us”. Ah so it go.
Nick Joseph is very much a Caymanian and not an expat. He is white though; I will give you that.
Actually, he is of mixed race, and was born in Jamaica, not that any of that matters. He has been in Cayman for more than 50 years.
I was being ironic about Mr Joseph, lil Bobo. I know very well who he is and who he for etc etc etc. I also happen to admire his work and, in particular, this well researched very helpful article. But I was writing in the voice of the followers of Messrs Bryan, MacField and Seymour (among others), Cayman’s own Brains Trust.
9.24…Ask WORC how much advice flows their way from Nick…for FREE..!
7.33 ..Nick Joseph is a Caymanian…
Mr Connor would be quite right if he also agreed that Nick Joseph’s sage advice, is repeatedly ignored by Government, because Nick Joseph is “white”..
To be fair, Mr. Connor is part right. The treatment of Steve McField as a bright young lawyer starting out in his own country was little short of disgusting. Many of those who mistreated him and denied him fair opportunity, were not from here. There is legitimate basis for some of the attitudes now coming to the surface. A steady hand and heart is required, but denying the undeniable gets us nowhere.
To be fair, I call bullshit.
Me too 3:18. Some of us suffered from hiring him as our lawyer in those distant days before he became OC’s constitutional expert. The expression “useless as tits on a boar hog” comes to mind. He might be better now though.