Editorial
A Really Commendable Immigration Agenda
The Cayman Islands Immigration Board must be commended for its recent decision to allow permanent residents to add their dependent spouses to their permanent residency status.
As chairman of the Board Mr. David Ritch said, this change is expected to be well received by the many permanent residence holders whose spouses are continually being subjected to the inconvenience of having their passports stamped with visitors' extensions.
This most recent change must be seen within the wider context of other developments that are occurring at the Immigration Department in particular and the Cayman Islands in general.
In recent months there has been the introduction of the CAYPass and the Business Visitors' Permit and other initiatives which suggest that the Immigration Department and the Immigration Board are showing more empathy and flexibility, in addition to being more customer-friendly, speedy and unambiguous in their decision-making.
The Board chairman has stated that the decision with respect to permanent residents' spouses is in keeping with their stated policy of reviewing ongoing practices and procedures, with a view to streamlining and simplifying applications to the board.
Mr. Ritch noted that he fully expected there would be further changes in the context of overall immigration legislation when the proposed reforms are brought before the Legislative Assembly in 2003.
These policies, as Mr. Ritch said, underscore the commitment of the Immigration Board and the Government to arriving at a sensible and comprehensive immigration policy.
Given the dynamics of the Cayman Islands economy, with its heavy reliance on expatriate labour and foreign investment, tourism and offshore banking, there has to be an inextricable and symbiotic link between immigration and economic policies.
It is quite evident, as recent as the last budget presented by Financial Secretary Mr., George McCarthy, that the government has been working diligently to preserve and enhance stability in the economic environment by implementing several measures aimed at making the process of governance more transparent, while simultaneously forging new partnerships with the private sector.
At the macro-economic level, Government seems to be pursuing the sustained implementation of sound fiscal and structural policies that are as important in terms of attracting foreign investment as they are for promoting healthy domestic economic development. And so, as the Cayman Islands government seeks to create conditions at both the macro-economic and micro-economic levels which serve to facilitate and stimulate investment in the economy, there can be no disputing that this must also involve the assurance of a facilitative and supportive Immigration Department and Immigration Board.
With the Cayman Islands being a service-based economy driven by foreign labour and foreign investment, when one factors in these renewed Immigration policy objectives into the economic matrix, there is an encouraging sense of the institutionalisation of a fully integrated approach to the design and implementation of national policy.
These are developments that should engender and encourage an element of pride and satisfaction on the part of the people of the Cayman Islands.
The ongoing challenge is to maintain a total national framework within which businesses and people can continue to operate efficiently.