TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands What is this program

expat regularisation programme

Here is an article from the BVI news on the subject:

https://bvinews.com/goal-post-shift...to-pre-qualify-for-govts-regularisation/

Thanks I did read that article what is regularisation?

It is the process for becomming a Belonger with rights of citizenship. After 20 years living in the BVI you can apply for perminent residency so you don't need a work permit then after a couple of years apply for Belonger status so you can vote. (You never get IBAHNHEA status.)
The problem has been that the processing of applications has been so slow and arbitrary a huge backlog has built up. The new government wanted to shorten the wait time and fast track those who currently qualify to clear the backlog but the idea raised a streak of xenophobia and the government seems to be backing off.

The VIP initially proposed dropping the residency requirement to 15 years. After much pushback, they returned to the 20 years. They have also greatly increased the fees to apply for both residency and belongership and are talking about adding a "contribution" requirement, as in volunteer work.

Everywhere people are trying to put up barriers to migration - very sad situation. I'm all right Jack seems to be the order of the day.

Immigrants should only be allowed if they apply legally and can add to the country and not live off the government.
A smaller country should be stricter in their immigration laws so as not to overload it’s territory

Without immigrant labour the BVI's simply would not survive. Nearly everyone in the hospitality business is non BVIslander. The belongers want Gov. jobs etc. As for overloading..the biggest overloading problem we have is cruise ships unloading thousands a day.

That’s nothing new,and the overwhelming majority are Caribbean islanders.
Do you think that’s the reason for the poor service ?

These posts sound a little too racially tinged for my taste..I'm opting out ..

Huh? Sorry Mal but I don't see what you are talking about.

What does race have to do with it unless your basing your disagreements if you have any on race instead of reality.

Does the new government really want to do this or is it because of the huge pressure being exerted upon them from the UK?

Hit the nail on the head! It's about "immigrating" LEGALLY. Sorry Malpot it's not a racists issue just doing it the right way!

Amen Rick.

Thank you

Yeah! This morning on my way to work I exceeded the speed limit, and thus failed to drive LEGALLY. I'm so ashamed.

Poor analogy DanS. You received no benefit (education, medical care, monetary aid, etc) at law abiding individual's expense because of your illegal activity.

However onerous, the BVI immigration laws should be respected and followed.

You are missing the point. Workers and residents are very happy to apply LEGALLY but the Gov. then makes it ridiculously hard to clear all the hurdles. The BVI relies on off island workers..ask anyone who owns any kind of business. Restaurants and hotels are drastically understaffed because of this and that hurts everyone. The slow service has been dragged up here ..sometimes the staff are slow but often there are not enough of them. The charter companies all use dozens of off islanders..without them your charter boat would not be ready to go. The Gov needs to speed up and ease the system. I have "permission to reside"..we posted a $3500 bond , jumped through a myriad of hoops but we cannot work "Paid or unpaid" and have to renew every year..this after buying a home and paying the gov sales tax. If I do volunteer work I could be thrown off the island! If all non belongers quit their job and left the BVI's the whole economy would collapse. " Here's your charter boat Capt..you will need to clean it, gas it up, provision it and check out all the systems because we have no staff..have a nice trip."

I think Manpot has summed up the situatin nicely but this thread is showing signs ov getting way out of line so I am locking it