(CNS): The backlog of permanent residency applications based on length of stay continues to grow as officials focus their attention on the problem of sham marriages. The majority of PR applications are by work permit holders or residents who have been here for eight years and apply via the points system, but the government’s priority is investigating the relatively few applications based on marriage to a Caymanian. The government believes marriages of convenience are on the rise and resources are being diverted to investigate these applications and other issues.

The Caymanian Status and Permanent Residency Board is still not deliberating on the points-based applications, according to a local law firm that specialises in immigration applications and is representing hundreds of foreign nationals who have applied for permanent residency based on the time lived here in the Cayman Islands.

In a regular email sent to the firm’s long list of clients awaiting a decision on their applications, Nick Joseph from HSM said the board was “actively dealing with the widespread issue of sham marriages”, the ongoing review of the points system, and processing applications for status as well as residency and employment rights certificates for the spouses of Caymanians.

Labour Minister Chris Saunders has raised concern about sham marriages on a number of occasions. Speaking in December, he said Caymanians were selling out their birthright and making a mockery of marriage, the traditional foundation of family life in Cayman. According to WORC, in 2022 its enforcement unit investigated 175 sham marriage reports and 114 cases resulted in “adverse findings”.

As the board focuses on this illegal practice, Joseph said that the time it takes to process all other PR applications is increasing. He said that PR applications under the points system are being handled by the director of WORC and his team of about five fully trained administrators who have processed over 100 applications since their appointment. But he warned that the current processing time for points-based PR applications is still about 16 months.

“As of this week, the authorities are writing to applicants who applied a year ago… and inviting them to update their applications,” he said in the most recent email.

With a growing backlog, some applicants awaiting a decision reach a ten-year residency mark, which gives them the legal ammunition to stay regardless of the points they have gained.

However, Joseph has alerted his clients to a new legal difficulty, namely the changing demographics that could make or break an application. There are now 135 different nationalities among the more than 34,000 work permit holders currently residing in the Cayman Islands.

Jamaicans account for almost 43% of permit holders and Filipinos account for 15.5%, but there is a growing number of people from India, who now make up more than 5.8%. This is likely to impact those applicants as it reduces the potential points given to nationalities that make up less than 5% of work permit holders.

Joseph said that Indian nationals face losing five points because they are now the fourth largest group, just behind UK nationals. The Permanent Residence Points System rewards rarer nationalities with more points while penalising those that appear over-represented.

Joseph said that WORC has never been clear about the timing at which the points for nationality are applied and who is counted in the overall total for each country at that moment, whether it is just those on an annual permit or includes government workers and other categories of expatriates.

“Of the many details we have sought for most of a decade is the question of whether it is the population on date of application, the date of the 8th anniversary of applicant’s arrival as a resident, or the date of consideration of their application,” he wrote. “We have never received clear guidance. Nor is there any indication of what happens when an application is delayed in its consideration by so long, through no fault of an applicant, that the statistics materially change in a manner adverse to an applicant.”

He said that denying an Indian national residency because of a delay in the process would appear unlawful and unlikely to survive a legal challenge.

Joseph said there was a “great multitude of other issues” that remain unclear, including how certain policies are interpreted by WORC and the boards, which results in uncertainties and potential arbitrariness of the application process. 

The top 12 nationalities on work permits at the end of 2022 according to WORC were: