Bush calls for new expats to ‘integrate or evacuate’
(CNS): Former Cayman Islands premier McKeeva Bush has said there is a growing “trend of people coming to our shores and want nothing to do with many native Caymanians”. During a press conference on Wednesday to launch a new political non-profit organisation, he called on these new arrivals to “integrate or evacuate”. The veteran MP said Cayman’s past immigration was successful because people integrated into the local community, but the behaviour now was un-Caymanian.
He said things are changing with a growing population and rapid increase in newcomers who are not mixing into the community, which is causing division. He said the government needs to find a new way of allowing people to secure residency rights while they live and work here, but in the future, Caymanian status should be reserved for the descendants of Caymanians and those who marry Caymanians.
“Our islands are too small for this kind of segregated mentality, and I can tell you that history is rife with many countries that went that route, and the division in their schools, their workplace, their supermarkets, and even their churches have created a social disharmony,” he said.
“To those people who do not want to integrate and be a part of this community, that behaviour is un-Caymanian, and I ask you to stop it. We don’t want our small islands to go down that route. Simply put, integrate or evacuate,” Bush added.
Launching his new non-profit organisation ahead of his plans for re-election, the former premier, now a parliamentary secretary in the ministry responsible for immigration and labour, said that in previous years, many people came here from overseas but integrated into the community, becoming part of its fabric.
Bush is infamous for the controversial mass status grants given to thousands of people in 2003, which came about because of the huge number of individuals who had been living in Cayman for decades at the time with no residency rights of any kind.
He said he knows that he was vilified for that, explaining that there were some 16,000 people at the time who “needed fixing” in terms of their immigration status. Immigration had been necessary to build modern Cayman, he said, and when the status grants were made, it was a result of decades of people coming to live, work and settle here without any rights, which had to be addressed.
He said you can’t build a country without foreign workers, but things were different now, and he was aware of the public response to the increasing population.
“The growth that we saw in the 1970s to the early 2000s was necessary to build the Cayman we have today. We have now reached a point where the population is growing faster than the opportunities that were previously available, so much so that too many people are being left behind,” Bush said.
“This is a recipe for social disharmony, and we need to slow down the population explosion, as our infrastructure and opportunities are not growing fast enough to accommodate this fast growth.”
Bush argued that he has never been anti-growth or anti-development but there is a time and place for everything. “People are saying the time is now to limit the grant of Caymanian status to descent or marriage and find a different form of belongership to our island nation. Any grants outside of that need to be looked at very carefully to ensure that we leave something for the next generation.”
Calling for a more balanced approach to immigration, Bush indicated that the government should be more careful with permit applications because the Cayman Islands cannot accommodate everyone.
Bush said the country must do a better job of building institutions that will serve, protect and prepare the people of the Cayman Islands for the challenges that they are now facing and will continue to face.
“We need to put our differences aside, live better with each other, and rebuild a community that creates opportunity for our people where we can once again share and care for each other,” Cayman’s longest-serving political representative added.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
What you say you going to fix BoBo. Forty (40) years and you could not anything fix around here?? BoBo go try another thing! We fed up!
I just says NO ! F u Cayman and Caymanians we run tings inna dis yah place now ! Unnah try any ting yah so we mash unnah up ! Who will mek us integrate eh bwoy ?
What is this awful “Cyall mi now for your free tarot readin'”, “Rass Trent”-ass level of writing? 😂
Lmao right?
Although I would argue that Ras Trent is a masterpiece compared to the previous comment.
In the clurb we all fam.
Integrate, meaning more expat males breed with stupid Caymanian women to create ‘local family ties’?
That’s already the M.O. of many male Caribbean expats in Cayman.
Lets not forget expat females breeding with the Caymanian males for the same reasons.
Integrate? Like flying off to Bahamas to gamble for a weekend, and coming back on the BA flight on a Monday, like any right thinking Caymanians do!
Got it.
Easy fix – just make it harder to get PR. Fewer people will make it and the rest will get rolled over.
This doesn’t require making changes to the ability to get status, any violation of human rights or change to the ability to apply for status.
They could cut the number of people eligible to get PR in half with a couple easy broad strokes of the pain by fixing the points system.
I don’t understand why they don’t do it. Guess it’s the same reason why they don’t fix the dump and public transport.
This makes sense: the only people who Cayman needs to sustain its economy are the financial services sector. Ensure that the people there whose departure/roll over would damage the economy can get PR, and make everyone else roll over.
Too easy, and no kickbacks involved though, so MLAs can’t be bothered? 🤷♀️
Whether you love him or dislike him, he’s not wrong. Caymanians are facing hardships not only from expatriates but also from their fellow Caymanians. All too often, Caymanians in positions of power use expats as a buffer to keep ambitious Caymanians at bay. We see expats holding roles that qualified Caymanians could fill, but some leaders seem to prefer the control they have over those on work permits rather than focusing on the quality of the work being done. While I’m not particularly a fan of Mac, he has a point—even a broken clock is right twice a day.
hey everybody, forget that i am horrible person and convicted woman beater XXXX … look over here and be mad at immigrants.
Fools only listen to fools. He is obviously still relevant here.
Return of the Mack
It is (return of the Mack)
Come on (return of the Mack)
Oh, my God (you know that I’ll be back)
Here I am
Return of the Mack
Once again (return of the Mack)
Top of the world (return of the Mack)
Watch my flow (you know that I’ll be back)
Here I go
So, I’m back up in the game (hustlin’ so)
Running things like half my swing (All night long)
Lettin’ all the people know
That I’m back to run the show
‘Cause what you did you know was wrong
And all the nasty things you’ve done (oh, oh, oh, oh)
So baby, listen carefully
While I sing my comeback song
“And now Mac spends just like a sailor
Could it be our boy’s done somethin’ rash….”
So Mac, are you including all those thousands of people who now have status because of your “Cabinet” aka personal grant? Irrevocable status at that. I guess you wouldn’t call them expatriates.
Giving away our birthright, you are a disgrace and an embarrassmentand and always will be.
Not irrevocable. Perfectly revocable but only where the holder is a criminal, and only by Cabinet.
The irrevocability is a myth, perpetuated by some of those who received it.
Correct.
Immigration (Transition) Act (2022 Revision):
Revocation on conviction
34. (1) Where the grantee of the right to be Caymanian or of Caymanian status under this or any earlier law is convicted by any court in the Islands or elsewhere of an offence —
(a) for which the grantee is sentenced to an immediate term of imprisonment of twelve months or more, other than for non-payment of a fine; and in respect of which conviction that person’s rights of appeal have been exhausted; or
(b) which, in the opinion of the grantor, was made possible by, facilitated by or connected with the grant,
the grantor may revoke the grant on that person’s own motion.
Cayman has developed an economy that can not be supported by Caymanians. That’s the root of the problem and there should be a lot more attention being paid to how to fix this. People frequently invoke the Dubai analogy. The problem with that is the Emiratis benefit from massive support payments that enable them to generate income by investment into assets generating rents, dividends, interest etc. There is no such system in Cayman, there obviously isn’t the oil & gas wealth, but governments should give serious consideration to facilitating financial benefits for Caymanians. We can argue about whether those should be straight income grants or support related to things like higher education anywhere in the world (Caymanians can easily access the US university system due to proximity but are treated as “out of state” by the public universities which results in significant tuition and fees more akin to the private university system. Would encourage government to pay for higher education for Caymanians anywhere in the world).
Government could form a “sovereign wealth fund” and use the capital to coinvest into major development projects in the hospitality industry and into major hotel operations. The wealth generated could be used to support the Caymanian population in various ways.
Expat workers should never be allowed to become Cayman citizens. That makes zero sense and shouldn’t be permitted. Permanent residents at some point in the far off future? Maybe. But not citizens with the right to vote. The reasons are obvious.
But there are too many expat workers because the current economy requires them. And they compete with Caymanians for schools and social services while living on wages that don’t afford a decent quality of life. Government policy should make it harder for businesses like that to survive. One indirect way to do this is to create/enforce policy that limits the number of people in a dwelling unit, eliminating the ability of expat workers to “hot bunk” with 6-10 people in a small apartment. Regulation like that would force wages up or force marginal businesses to go bust relieving the pressure on generating more guest workers and relieving the pressure on social services. Seriousl enforcing existing regulation disallowing guest workers from splitting time between multiple employers would have the similar effect of reducing the number of marginal businesses who require guest workers.
Over time and with fair warning, business should be informed that it will be next to impossible to hire expats in professional, maagerial, white collar roles. Do this together with creating opportunity for world class higher education and watch how quickly the major businesses in Cayman who claim that it’s “impossible” to staff with Caymanians find ways to make it happen and to invest in Caymanians if skill acquisition is required first.
Yes there is a major problem with the decisions of previous governments to make it too easy for non Caymanians to become Caymanian and yes any support schemes will unfairly benefit Caymanians who immigrated to the island. But politics is not the art of the perfect and its time to get over the complaining, get on with the solving and stop making the problem worse by continuing to allow the guest worker population to grow.
This! ➡️ “Cayman has developed an economy that can not be supported by Caymanians.”
Oh yes, make it impossible for financial services business to hire foreign workers! That will be great for the island!
Churning out graduates with the intelligence and education to compete in our financial services industry isn’t just a matter of paying for kids to go to good Universities. It’s a matter of numbers. Only a tiny % of people make it into the top law and accountancy firms in the rest of the world. Most people are simply not capable or so inclined (I’m not either FWIW). You wouldn’t expect Cayman to field a 20 world class football teams for the same reason. Given the tiny number of school leavers we have here and even smaller % of them who could actually get into the worlds top universities (like anywhere) it is utterly absurd to imagine we could ever staff even half of our FS firms with only generational Caymanians. This is not to disparage our kids and young adults in any way, it’s simply a matter of having the numbers to have enough people to meet the required standard.
We’ve given thousands in the FS Status but the more we give the more they want. It’s so bad now that none of the major Banks are headed by a Caymanian like in the past.
That is a reflection of the appalling educational performance of Caymanians in a recent years.
See the figures below.
Blame Roy Bodden for destroying the educational system due to his lobotomised xenophobic replacement of English educational standards with Caribbean educational standards.
You’re probably religious, right? Remember: “You reap what you sow?”
“We’ve given thousands in the FS Status…”
This is a non-sequitur. You must give PR/status to expats because the atrocious educational performance of the majority of Caymanians means that they are incapable of doing the high-end white collar jobs upon which Cayman’s economy depends. If you didn’t, the financial service industry would leave and focus its efforts elsewhere.
You fix the problem by vastly improving educational performance. Not by whingeing about expats. How is this difficult to understand?
Assertion:
“Over time and with fair warning, business should be informed that it will be next to impossible to hire expats in professional, maagerial (sic), white collar roles. Do this together with creating opportunity for world class higher education…”
Reality:
[Summary. Financial services fund Cayman, including the amorphous CIG/World Class Civil Service/NAU blob. Therefore , the only people who matter are financial services firms’ CLIENTS. 60% of Caymanian kids leaving school are functionally illiterate and innumerate. Accounting firms, etc. simply cannot employ such people, and even when they do CLIENTS get to choose who they instruct.]
Professional services firms fund Cayman, and pay for everything here. These are ferociously competitive industries, and clients have freedom of choice as to who they instruct. Mutatis mutandis as to in which jurisdiction those clients choose to invest. Therefore, in that free market, CLIENTS’ preferences are paramount:
(1) Caymanians are free to compete with non-Caymanians to sell their services, and clients have the freedom of choice as to who they instruct.
(2) Qualifications and overseas experience are however vital, both substantively and presentationally (e.g. such people are both objectively superior and look superior to clients), and this is why clients choose to instruct them.
(3) The reason Cayman is the most successful Caribbean territory is specifically because Cayman has commendably not indulged in xenophobic, self-sabotaging economically suicidal rhetoric and protectionism. The exception is at election time, e.g. in articles such as these.
Almost everything the author writes is high-emotion, low-intellect nonsense. For example, it is inconceivable that accounting firms would survive much less thrive if their employees (a) were forced to leave after several years; and (b) were not able to secure permanent residence (PR), and in due course status. Even Hong Kong, home of the evil CCP, grants PR after 7 years. That’s because they know that, if they don’t, people will work elsewhere, such as Singapore or Dubai. Cayman’s golden goose, financial services, is not guaranteed to keep the money flowing, if the islands decide to self-immolate in a frenzy of protectionism.
Competitor locations compete by employing both expats, and highly-skilled locals. Cayman is therefore utterly dependant on highly-qualified expats, unless Caymanians perform better. How’s that’s going, after Roy Bodden’s famous Caribbeanisation of the Cayman education system? ⬇️
“Premier Wayne Panton has said the civil service headcount cannot continue to grow… Panton said that the government must move away from “social hiring”” https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/09/premier-says-civil-service-must-stop-growing
“It’s the duty of communities all over the world to give their children an education to a standard that enables them to become full members of their home communities. It takes a village, as they say. By that measure, Cayman’s government has failed, and continues to fail. Some of our Islands’ children succeed, but most don’t…” https://www.caymancompass.com/2016/01/21/barlow-education-versus-protection/
“Cayman’s current representatives have their knickers in a twist, trying to resolve the consequences. An uncomfortable number of the tribe’s members are coming up short in the following respects:-
· Unschooled beyond a minimal level
· Unemployable because of an anti-work attitude
· Untrained and undisciplined in the management of their personal finances
· Intolerant towards foreign ethnic groups
Those deficiencies have steadily worsened in recent years; the drift to full dependency on government handouts has passed the point of no return. There is no apparent solution on the horizon. It looks as though, in time, our “native” citizenry will become overwhelmingly dependent on welfare.” https://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2015/05/caymans-entitlement-culture.html
If Caymanians want better jobs, they must perform better. That starts early. See:
(1) 2021: “Almost 60% of Year 11 students miss 2021 exam targets …according to the Data Report for the Academic Year 2020-21, just 40.3% of Year 11 students achieved the national standard target of five or more Level 2 subjects including English and maths.” https://caymannewsservice.com/2022/04/almost-60-of-year-11-students-miss-2021-exam-targets.
(2) 2023: “A data report released by the education ministry reflects a decline in external exam results…with standards in mathematics dropping back to 2017 levels… despite the significant investment that has been made in public education… Only 27% of all students at Key Stage 2, when they leave primary school, had reached the expected standards in all three core subjects of reading, writing and maths.” https://caymannewsservice.com/2023/05/report-shows-school-leaver-results-drop-from-peak/
(3) 2024: “…only 26% of children leaving all government primary schools achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, according to a data report published last month by the Department of Education Services and the Ministry of Education. This is 1% down from the [previous] academic year.” https://caymannewsservice.com/2024/04/education-data-report-reflects-poor-school-results/
Also:
https://caymannewsservice.com/2019/09/school-standards-gap/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2018/12/2018-year-11-exam-results/
https://caymannewsservice.com/2017/05/education-results-fall-in-2016-data-report/
Businesses are not welfare schemes for the unemployable (that’s the “World Class Civil Service™” AKA ‘Shadow NAU’). The equivalent of the obsessive navel-gaving about Caymanian affirmative action, and whinging about expats, is the Black Economic Empowerment legislation in South Africa. As with all attempts to impose racial preferences/unmeritocratic tribalism, it has been a failure: https://theconversation.com/only-south-africas-elite-benefits-from-black-economic-empowerment-and-covid-19-proved-it-189596.
If Cayman wants to regress to being a handful of fishing villages, then quasi-Jamaican politicians can have hissy fits about expats. If not, keep quiet, knuckle down, and focus on educating the kids so that in due course they can compete for clients to further develop Cayman. Compete on merit: not skin color. There will be limits to this, though. An island of only 30,000 so-called “multigenerational Caymanians”, with the record of educational achievement documented above, seems unlikely to be able to rapidly generate any more that a tiny % of competent, internationally competitive, white collar professionals necessary to fulfil the wide range of roles here – without which, the island collapses into bankruptcy.
Other islands have demonstrated what happens if you indulge in lobotomised protectionism. See:
https://cpsi.media/p/jamaica-is-not-doing-ok
https://cpsi.media/p/why-does-barbados-underperform
https://cpsi.media/p/colonialism-and-progress-fb9
Be careful what you agitate for.
classic case of shooting the messenger.
Wayne Panton had the perfect opportunity to rid us of this Louse once and for all and instead he breathed life into him.. both are no different in my eyes #shewasneversupported
Sadly caymanians will vote both Panton and Bush back in and ignore the obvious corruption and cronyism just for a lil $1000 for their vote.
Makes me sick but such is life!
The share gall of this pariah who along with his minions have single handling usher in this very dire situation and onslaught facing the indigenous Caymanian population who are now a minority due to those like him and Fake Alden successive administrations catering to every #%@&sucker that showed up here wid a few $$$ to give them and their disciples. F u Bababushka and the horse you rode in on too! Wha happen to you now ? You have come to find now your servants are now Infact your master. You are now sounding very ungrateful indeed. But thank you for telling us how bad the vermin you help bring here now has become, So terrible that even you now are complaining about them !
Quite frankly, this seems like a sad attempt by Bush to stay relevant in the face of growing contempt for his presence in local politics by trying to stoke up the same division that he speaks of – and he is doing so by ripping off the same tired, old lines being hawked by conservative politicians abroad (but especially those of the GOP in America and the Tories in the UK). But it’s not a surprise – a disgusting attitude from an equally repulsive man. Hopefully the next time I see him in the news is to announce his election loss.
AMEN!!!
He is responsible for many of the migrants in Cayman as his goal is to have a population of 100k.
He cannot be compared to the Republicans in USA as they are fighting against open door policies which have allowed millions of undesirable criminals into the USA from mainly third world countries.
McKeeva Bush just needs to go away for good. Unfortunately, too many vultures in corporate Cayman know his price and are happy to support him because he still has some influence politically, despite the numerous embarrassing chapters in his political career.
He has been a key figure in the last three coalition governments 2 led by the PPM majority from 2013-2021 and the PACT/UPM coalition from from 2021 to date. Why has he failed to highlight the immigration issues and need for reforms or tightening of the immigration belt given his key influence over the last 3 elected governments?
Does he forget that the unplanned and advoc status grant process starting in 2002-2004 failed to address these concerns and in some cases exacerbated the very things he now speaks about? If the majority of our country men and their families became “Caymanian” via a lottery system where no criteria is used to build the country or grow the population which ignored the very issues he now complains about this disaster can be directly attributable to him as the then Leader of Government Business, EXCO Members and his acolytes who all submitted names (including PPM leaders and supporters).
Mr. Bush’s recent rant may have some merit because Cayman needs meaningful immigration reform because multigenerational Caymanians have largely become second class citizens in our own country. However, look at his legacy these type of utterances for what they are pure old school POLITRICKS.
The only power Caymanians have left is political power but we keep voting in people like McKeeva Bush, his disciples and other crafty pirates in the PPM that are controlled by the big money players that finance Cayman’s political circus.
McKeeva Bush has become a stain on our politics like those before his rise to power. Unfortunately, there are currently a handful of current and former elected MPs that have done far worse to accelerate the demise of modern Cayman since being elected to office in the last 30 years. The difference is they do not crave the spotlight like McKeeva or have the multiple public drunken episodes. Instead, they and their handlers negotiate their fees and contracts for services in the dark, over domino games, and are more sophisticated and unscrupulous. They just smile more in public.
The PPM and other groups have demonstrated they are willing to work with McKeeva and will do so again. This demonstrates his power and the reality that none can be trusted to do the right thing in the best interests of Cayman.
He has shown them all that politics is the quickest way to become a multimillionaire by sheer force of personality. His reading of any room of personalities that are desperate, selfish and willing to do whatever it takes to succeed is not limited to politicians but includes the wealthy and unscrupulous persons and corporate entities that have consistently demonstrated they are happy to pay the price to any politician in Cayman in return for favors and influence. That is the definition of corruption which is now overt in the Cayman Islands today.