Philipsburg: --- Leader of Government William Marlin at a press conference on Wednesday said that the executive council of St. Maarten had agreed to take a decision on how to proceed with the BTA permit recipients. Marlin said he already notified the Minister of Justice Magali Jacoba that the executive council would sign off on the agreement sometime this week. Jacoba is expected to inform the general public about the agreement on Thursday.Marlin said the council has decided to grant the holders of the category one permits a three year residency permit and they will be considered as permanent residents when the three year expires.
The island leader of government said that while going through the file it has been determined that there are people who were residing on St. Maarten for 39 years and they were not registered.
Marlin said years ago the situation was different and people did not pay attention to the immigrants who came to live on the island. These people he said also did not bother to regulate their statuses. At that time he said jobs were in abundance and there was no control. Furthermore one of things government had to look at is how long these persons have been living on St. Maarten with children that were born here and those children knew no other home. Marlin said while these children are carrying their parent's nationality and they were born on St. Maarten. Marlin said it would be rather unfair to apply the labor policy to these people now and to have them constantly renewing their papers.
Marlin said when the three year expires then government would have to treat these persons as permanent residents, simply because these persons have been living on St. Maarten for a number of years.
Marlin made clear that even though the agreement is in place it will be signed off during the course of Wednesday.
