Minister of Home Affairs and Information Gregory Nicholls has stated that a comprehensive review of the work permit system is under way that includes longer advertising periods, mandatory targeting of young job seekers and more stringent requirements for employers to prove they cannot find suitable Barbadian workers.
He made the announcement during yesterday’s sitting of the Joint Select Committee on Economic and Productive Sectors on the Immigration Bill, 2026, while insisting that Government did not need to amend the Constitution to reform immigration laws.
He was responding to a question from representatives of the Barbados Bar Association questioning a business applying for an automotive window tinter work permit.
Nicholls, in his response, made it clear that public advertisement of a work permit application did not guarantee approval.
“The placement of an advertisement in the press or in the public domain by any employer is not indicative of the decision given by the Immigration Department on the application. Every application that is publicised is not granted,” he said.
The minister explained that policy guidance was issued by the ministry based on labour market supply data provided by the Ministry of Labour.
Discussion
“We are reviewing how that policy has been working and how it can be streamlined. Only a couple months ago, the Minister of Labour and myself had a discussion and we shared information pertaining to how our regional counterparts and countries within the Commonwealth have been dealing with the work permit situations.”
Nicholls said the ministry was closely monitoring international developments, particularly recent changes in Canada and the United Kingdom, both of which have introduced significant restrictions on immigration this year, including on work permits and student visas.
“I’m going to ask the Immigration Department to compile that information so that we can have a look at how the work permit situations are being dealt with in other countries so we can see whether there’s a trend or whether there are changes that are emerging,” he said.
The minister signalled that Barbados intended to be strategic in adopting international best practices “and the bad things that they have that don’t really work, if we have those bad things, we will also try to amend them in our laws”.
The minister took direct aim at the phrase “no suitably qualified person found”, which employers routinely use to justify hiring foreign workers.
Coded language
“Having found no suitably qualified person, the number of Barbadians who feel that [that is] coded language, that is coded language for something that we all know too well that we really want, that we would remove as a scourge from our nation,” Nicholls said. “But that is the complaint in some sectors in Barbados that when that is used, that is meant to exclude the vast majority of us but we are going to require employers to give a more detailed response to those questions and indeed, I will give the country the assurance that the current system is going to be strengthened. “Some countries have gone the way of targeting recruitment within a specific age cohort, particularly the youth because youth unemployment tends to be higher all over the world than in ordinary unemployment among other working peoples,” Nicholls explained.
He assured the committee that the overarching goal was to protect Barbadian workers while maintaining a fair and transparent system.
The most legally significant exchange of the morning centred on the Bar Association’s contention that certain provisions of the Immigration Bill could not be enacted without amending the Constitution. Nicholls was unequivocal in rejecting that argument.
“It is not the view of the Government that you can only amend immigration laws if the Constitution is changed. We say that from the point of view that the highest law of the land is the Constitution of Barbados. The Constitution of Barbados does not put that prescription in the Constitution that the immigration policy can only be changed in law by way of amendment of the Constitution,” he said.
While acknowledging the Bar Association’s position as “an honourable sentiment”, Nicholls made it clear it would not derail the legislative process.
The Bar Association also argued that provisions in the bill concerning the mechanism for granting citizenship were at variance with the Constitution. Nicholls did not dispute that the provisions differed from what was currently in the Constitution, but insisted the variance did not render them void.
“The Government also understands that a law cannot be at variance with the Constitution but when you say A and say B, you must also look at the thing in its whole. We understand that you can’t be at variance with the Constitution, but while the provisions vary, the variance is not such that would make those provisions void,” he argued,” as he referenced Section (9) of the Constitution.
“The actual Constitution at Section 9 sets out that Parliament can pass laws to grant citizenship to persons who are not entitled to citizenship under the Constitution. So the very Constitution permits Parliament to do exactly what not only these two bills are doing, but what the existing legislation does,” he said. (MB)
