As Jamaica Confer Citizenship On Those In The Country Illegally, Here’s A Thought…

Steps tak­en by the Government to reg­u­lar­ize the sta­tus of peo­ple liv­ing in Jamaica ille­gal­ly is a step in the right direction.
Speaking at a swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew for 47 for­eign nation­als who have been grant­ed Jamaican cit­i­zen­ship, nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter Robert Montague said “We have many per­sons who came here ille­gal­ly. They have lived here, mar­ried and have chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, and have nev­er sort­ed out their sta­tus. We want to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to (become legal) Jamaican citizens.”

“It is the least we can do for those who have helped to build this econ­o­my and nation but, some­how, have nev­er sort­ed out their documents”.
“Jamaicans have gone else­where and ben­e­fit­ed from the oppor­tu­ni­ty to for­mal­ize their cit­i­zen­ship. It is now time for Jamaica to offer those on her shores the same opportunity.” 

There is not much to dis­agree with in the sen­ti­ments of the Minister. For decades Jamaicans have ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the largesse and gen­eros­i­ty of host nations which have opened their doors and allowed us in.
As a result of their benev­o­lence, tens of hun­dreds of thou­sands of Jamaicans lives, maybe mil­lions, have been pos­i­tive­ly impact­ed both at home and in their host countries.

Residually our coun­try has ben­e­fit­ted immense­ly from the gen­eros­i­ty of oth­er coun­tries which have opened their doors to allow us in. The ben­e­fit to our coun­try is incal­cu­la­ble with the mon­ey sent back to Jamaica for years rep­re­sent­ing Jamaica’s sec­ond largest for­eign exchange earner.
Additionally, Jamaica ben­e­fits from oth­er nation’s largess through edu­ca­tion and skills train­ing, it is only right that giv­en the chance that Jamaica should rec­i­p­ro­cate this good­will wher­ev­er possible.

CONVERSELY

With that said let us hope that the prop­er pro­to­cols are being fol­lowed com­men­su­rate with the pro­ce­dures, Jamaicans are sub­ject­ed to when they move to oth­er coun­tries. This is impor­tant par­tic­u­lar­ly as it relates to the fact that those con­ferred with cit­i­zen­ship arrived in the coun­try ille­gal­ly accord­ing to the Minister’s own admission.
The move to reg­u­lar­ize their sta­tus is indeed noble, how­ev­er, to sim­ply reg­u­lar­ize their sta­tus with­out any puni­tive com­po­nent attached, [mon­e­tary or oth­er­wise] is an open invi­ta­tion for ille­gal immi­grants to flood the coun­try and not nec­es­sar­i­ly for the right reasons.

Movement of peo­ple from coun­try to coun­try is as nat­ur­al as the air we breathe. Jamaica with its reg­gae music, white sandy beach­es, great food, and drink is a major draw for peo­ple around the world, despite our prob­lem with crime.
I urge the author­i­ties to be astute and judi­cious with the way they han­dle this process of accept­ing new peo­ple and bestow­ing cit­i­zen­ship on them.
Let the process be expan­sive and well thought out, rem­i­nis­cent of what Jamaican nation­als are sub­ject­ed to when we seek res­i­den­cy in oth­er countries.

The Government owes this to our coun­try and peo­ple to ensure that the Immigration process is not an ad-hoc process based on the whim and fan­cy of a sin­gle individual.
In today’s world of Terrorism, nar­cotics dis­tri­b­u­tion and oth­er transna­tion­al crimes, includ­ing ille­gal move­ment of arms and Kidnappings it is incum­bent that Government do due dili­gence, and emu­late best prac­tices from others.

It is unde­ni­able that many Haitians who broached our shores and set­tled in parts of Clarendon and oth­er parts of the coun­try did not come with our invi­ta­tion. They did not come with skills we need­ed which would nec­es­sar­i­ly be pos­i­tive­ly impact­ful to our country.
Despite this, they have been engaged in smug­gling mas­sive amounts of guns into our coun­try in col­lu­sion with Jamaican criminals.
Jamaican farm­ers have borne the brunt of this ille­gal part­ner­ship as they lose their live­stock to crim­i­nals who slaugh­ter them to exchange the car­cass­es for weapons in Haiti.

Chinese nation­als who come to our coun­try have stayed, many who stayed ille­gal­ly have flood­ed our mar­kets with coun­ter­feit goods, much of which are not what they pur­port to be, includ­ing food prod­ucts which are report­ed to be of sus­pect quality.
Many Colombians and oth­ers from South America who come to Jamaica have ingra­ti­at­ed them­selves into the crim­i­nal under­world and have con­tributed much accord­ing to sources, to the enhance­ment of the weapons and cocaine com­ing into our country.

Jamaican author­i­ties can ill-afford to be bleary-eyed about the way it hands out cit­i­zen­ship. As cir­cum­stances change across the globe peo­ple of all stripes will be look­ing for safer places (safer sub­jec­tive) to live and raise their families.
So too will crim­i­nal net­works be look­ing to find weak spots to set­tle and set up shop to fur­ther their crim­i­nal enterprises.
Someone has got to be look­ing out for the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of the Jamaican Nation and peo­ple, sad to say I am not sure that the peo­ple who are sup­posed to be guid­ing the ship of state aren’t asleep at the tiller or worse, even know that they should care about this.

FOOTNOTE

In the penul­ti­mate arti­cle, I wrote I stat­ed that the per­son of inter­est in the arms cache Investigation (a woman) would prob­a­bly be released with­out any charges laid against her.
She has been released with­out charge albeit with a bond we are told.

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