Challenge in works for rollover
Published on Friday, July 27, 2007

Up to 500 Work Permit Holders face expulsion from the Cayman Islands as the Immigration Department implements a seven-year term limit or rollover policy despite efforts to vigorously challenge the issue.

Caught in the middle are employees who have taken the minimum one-year break of service to re-enter the Cayman Islands’ workforce, but their permits were issued before the new measure came into effect late last year.

Under the old law, expatriates who served in the Cayman Islands for seven continuous years had to take a two-year break before seeking re-employment on the Island.

The Immigration Department has now ruled that work permits issued prior to the law being changed are still subject to the two-year rule.

This is causing particular problems for people who left the Island because their jobs were lost following Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.

Many could not come back to the Island for periods of just over a year while businesses recovered from Ivan’s damage, they then returned to fill the vacancies created as the economy picked up.

Initially, there was some concern that many of them who had already spent five or six years in the Cayman Islands, but had been away for less than two years, would return only to be rolled over. At the time the potential effect on local businesses, many of them operating in areas such as tourism, which are essential to the local economy, was seen as potentially devastating.

In the end, the Government relented and reduced the minimum break to one year.

Following the announcement of this change, employers, employees and expert immigration consultants assumed that those affected would be allowed to start their seven-year terms from scratch, as they have been off the Islands for at least the required 12 months.

While no one would go on the record because the matter seems certain to end up in court, there is concern that the ruling contradicts the principle established by the seven-year rollover policy that immigration legislation is retroactive. When rollover was introduced, the new rules were applied retrospectively to all work permit holders, regardless of whether their permit was issued before or after the law was changed.

It was, and still is, one of the most controversial aspects of the law.

However, the latest ruling is seen as contradicting this principle. One source says the Immigration Department is now arguing that revisions to the law cannot affect the status of existing Work Permit Holders. That being the case, they argue, rollover can only be applied to work permits issued after the revised law came into force.

It is being reported that the ruling is being applied selectively to certain categories of employment, with people who are regarded as being at the ‘high end’ of the employment market not being targeted.

To many foreign nationals working in the Cayman Islands, the ruling is seen as just the latest example of the Immigration Department, backed by the current Government, making up the rules as they go along.

One, who asked not to be named, said they felt it was about time the Governor, who is technically the head of the Civil Service on the Islands, stepped in and took control before the whole immigration process fell into disrepute.

The Immigration Department is understood not to be responding to any enquiries on this matter while appeals against the ruling are being prepared.

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