The arresting officer in Raul Garcia’s case is suggesting that the Government amend the law to give the ex-convict limited immigrant status.
George Bennett, a former police inspector and now a defence attorney, said Garcia had done his time and Barbados could not keep him under the present conditions forever.
“The Immigration Act restricts Government from doing anything other than what it is doing now unless it amends the section to allow the minister to exempt drug offenders. As it is, this is in the control of the Chief Immigration Officer. Government would have to amend the law to allow the minister to give limited immigration status to Garcia based on the special conditions,” he said.
Bennett, who spent 24 years in the Royal Barbados Police Force before becoming an attorney at law eight years ago, explained that Garcia’s case was a special one because although he was to be deported, his country of birth, Cuba, was not willing to accept him and neither was the United States, where he once lived.
