According to a report in the Cayman Compass newspaper, a Jamaican woman who has lived in that country as a legal resident for the last two decades was recently given 90 days to leave after her appeal for permanent residence was denied.
The woman, Birdy Evadney Blake Morrison, has reportedly filed for judicial review of the case, which is steeped in the history of the territory’s Immigration Law and could turn into a human rights issue for the courts, depending on whether her request for judicial review is accepted by the Grand Court.
“The applicant has now been resident in the Cayman Island[s] for almost 20 years without a break in stay,” the application for judicial review states. “The decisions were unreasonable and in breach of the rules of natural justice...”
Mrs. Blake Morrison’s appeal to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal was denied on Oct. 17, 2013, according to the judicial review filing. The latest amendments to the Immigration Law were approved and took effect later in the same month.
The key issue regarding Mrs. Blake Morrison’s case is that, at the time her matters were considered, unsuccessful applicants for permanent residence were all given an automatic one year non-renewable work permit allowing them to make arrangements prior to leaving Cayman. The amendments to the Immigration Law approved in October provide only 90 days for that process.
According to court records, a decision of the chief immigration officer dated Feb. 17, 2014, granted Mrs. Blake Morrison a final work permit of three months.
“The decisions were wrong in law in that they deprive the applicants [Mrs. Blake Morrison and her employer, Sherri Bodden Cowan] of the right to a final 12 month work permit ...,” the judicial review application states.
When the Cayman Islands Immigration Law was first changed to allow for what was known as the “rollover” policy in 2004, a requirement that all non-Caymanian residents leave the jurisdiction after seven continuous years of residence, a number of individuals who had lived in the country for at least five years were allowed to apply for permanent residence, the right to stay in Cayman for the rest of their lives.
Mrs. Blake Morrison made such an application in 2006. The initial application was denied at some point in the process and that denial was appealed to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal, which eventually heard the case in October 2013.
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