Opposition Senator Ryan Walters is suggesting that data collected in relation to the introduction of the free movement involving Barbados and three other countries be analysed to give a clearer picture of whether that particular immigration policy was working.
Speaking on the Immigration Bill in the Senate yesterday, Walters said that the legislation had been reworked and brought back to the chamber but there was still much more the Government has to put in place to make sure that it worked.
He said that information suggested that around 1 000 applications were processed under the enhanced pre-movement arrangements between Belize, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. Barbados had the majority of those applications.
“But we do not know how many of those persons are actually living here after the year. We do not know how many found employment, we do not know how many found suitable housing, we do not know how many came as individuals or how many came as families.
“There’s not enough data to make a decision that allowing persons to come into Barbados would eventually have the impact that we would want as a country.
“So I encourage the Government to dig deeper into the analyses of that simple 14 months or so of the movement of those persons into Barbados so that we can start to draw some analysis and conclusions on if these types of policies are really working,” he told the Senate. (AC)