The Brooks Tower Permit was aimed at regulating the undocumented on St. Maarten for a period of one year. However, many on St. Maarten feel that the Central government through the Minister of Justice has exploited the illegal residents with the Brooks Tower Permits. Some said the Minister used the opportunity to make monies on St. Maarten prior to St. Maarten becoming country since the Brooks Tower would not help St. Maarten's after November 3 2010.
The monies collected from the Brooks Tower process went to Curacao since the Central Government footed the bill for the program. Already there are concerns as to how St. Maarten would deal with the illegal residents come 10/10/10. This they said would cost the island millions of guilders if they were to try to legalize those persons that received the Brooks Tower Permits.
One of the suggestions by the some elected on St. Maarten is for the Minister of Justice Magali Jacoba to amend the immigration admission and expulsion regulation then those persons in category 1 would have been able to sign for themselves. With the current LTU regulation, the Governor of St. Maarten or the other islands cannot issue Independent Residency Permits since the Governor's office does not have any competency on labour permits. "In the past St. Maarten was issuing independent residency permits to people who are able to prove their income but this was stopped when several elected officials raised their concerns on the Independent Residency Permit verses the Indefinite Residency Permit." Some said the governor could not issue the independent permits since the holders of these permits would not need a working permit.
Currently the implementation of the FMS system is being installed but so far, the model was not published on the island. SMN News learnt that the protocol on the FMS is not given to the governor neither the island's elected. SMN News learnt that when the FMS system is fully implemented as is in Curacao then the Governor's cabinet would not have access to the program. Furthermore, it creates a situation to breed corruption. Several persons speaking out against the FMS system and the way it is implemented said at least two top cops was sentenced to prison after they misused the NAVAS Systems some years ago, even when the system could have been monitored.
Efforts made to contact the Minister on Monday proved futile as she is currently in the Netherlands.
