With much satisfaction many of us applaud the news of the Immigration and Labor controls soon to start on business establishments. But what does it all mean? What results will it deliver? But most importantly, will the controls make a difference for the locals who are presently unemployed?
Businesses will be visited by controllers of both departments. The legal status of their employees will be checked but how many illegal workers will actually be found on the job during these controls?
Over the years both employers and illegally working employees have been able to beat the system one way or another with the results being a Grace Period in 2001/2002 and the recently held Brooks Towers Accord (BTA), whereby persons were found residing illegally on the Island for ten years or more. So how are these controls going to be any different from our past experiences?
We all will agree that the efforts being made are positive but one should also consider the effectiveness when taking actions.
In addition to the controls of businesses, would it not be much more effective to have early morning or late afternoon controls of buses taking their many passengers to and from their respective jobs, regular traffic controls of vehicles and their passengers as well as regular controls within the many residential districts and Marine sectors or persons walking along the roads to simply present their documents upon request? Having controls of businesses once in, for instance, every six months will most definitely not prove sufficient to effectively remedy the immigration issues we are being faced with presently.
It is however yet to be seen how this will benefit the unemployed locals and are they willing and able to fill any positions becoming available on short notice. Also interesting to note is if persons, now holding an employment permit under the guarantee of one specific employer will be granted permission to transfer under another employer. Reality is, there are a large number of un-employed foreigners still holding validated permits.
We however must assume that all of these questions and concerns have already been taken into consideration by the Departments concerned. #sxmmovement.
Soualiga Social Movement