Address NDP immigration backlog - Hon Penn urges Premier
In further rebuking Premier Fahie and his Virgin Islands Party (VIP) administration, Hon Penn lashed out that given such an important issues for the territory, he was not even consulted ahead of the decision to amend the 'Immigration and Passport Act', nor was he consulted after the planned amendments were deleted from the House of Assembly (HoA) order Paper of Friday, May 17, 2019.
No Consultations – Hon Penn
“We saw an order paper, [and] a change to a very critical and important piece of legislation with no consultation with us as the Leader of the Opposition. I don’t know if there was consultation with the government sitting in power, based on some discussions it seems that there weren’t any consultations,” he said at a Thursday, May 23, 2019, opposition meeting at the Valarie O. Thomas Community Centre in Sea Cows Bay.
During the meeting, Hon Penn also alleging that some government ministers were not aware of the proposed plan by the Premier, “This is a very important topic and the Issue of immigration is something that we should not just fast track through first, second and third readings. It is important that at least the Premier, take a stop,” he said.
The Premier has since postponed his immigration programme to hold consultations with the public on the way forward, however, the Opposition Leader implored, “Will see when the Order Paper comes out for [the] June 3rd sitting if he’s actually listening.”
According to Hon Penn, “We all agree that there needs to be a clear path for persons who are living amongst us, to be regularised. We have a process in place currently, the first step was to address and look at the process that we have currently, to deal with the persons who have been here 20, 25, 30, plus year,” he noted in pointing that the Premier should have dealt with the NDP backlog first.
The Premier on May 7, 2019, had announced that existing applications for residency and belongership status in the VI will automatically be considered as part of the new programme while imploring that although the government programme is not a new one, it was planned and better researched for its implementation under the VIP administration.
No Clarity – Hon Penn
Hon Penn further said that immigration is not an overnight solution, where one can “just quickly with the swipe of a pen change the entire process that put a short timeline on that process with no clarity in terms of how we moving forward, how we got to this point, and how it's going to impact us overall.”
Mr Penn called for more dialogue on the issue, while noting that a data-driven approach is needed to make informed decisions, “we have to make sure that when we make these decisions, everybody is involved in the process,” he said.
“I’m hoping that we still have time for that dialogue, and you as a people also should make sure that your voices are heard in the process."
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13 Responses to “Address NDP immigration backlog - Hon Penn urges Premier ”
Make sense to me!
You Elect a Government that refuses to account for anything or answer questions in the house. . Yet you condone that validate that behavior. Our country is in serious issue with this blind allegiance.
We have some challenging times ahead with this type of mindset. God I pray for these Virgin Islands. Please bring healing.