Turks and Caicos Islands hosts Immigration Summit

#Providenciales, August 16, 2018 – Turks and Caicos – An unprecedented gathering of current and past country leaders lent to a lively exchange and a first of its kind convening dubbed the Turks and Caicos Immigration Summit.  The caucus was hosted and is the brainchild of border control and Employment Minister, Deputy premier Sean Astwood.

“It’s been a consistent commitment not to politicize immigration, and I have been talking to members of the different political parties and just generally in the public about doing something and having this kind of approach toward immigration.  The idea is to get as much input into the topic matter as possible.” – Hon. Sean Astwood, Deputy Premier.

The goal of the cast of characters which included former chief ministers, former deputy premiers and first premier of the Turks and Caicos was to come up with an immigration policy with unequivocal bi-partisan support.  The Policy is supposed to survive election battles and become a more stable agreement on what immigration and border control laws ought to look like for the TCI.

“We should have a balanced immigration policy that delivers benefits to the people of these islands, it also means that it should be fair to those people who are invited here to work.” – Hon. Washington Misick, LOO

Both the Border control Minister and leader of the Opposition agree that this is just the beginning.

“There is still a lot of technical analysis to be done, so that at the end of the day what ever policy evolves or comes out of this, what ever decisions are made, it doesn’t have unintended consequences.” – Hon. Washington Misick, LOO

“What we are doing coming out of the summit today, is we’re going to be producing a report that we will share with the participants and whether we pull together a think tank or other additional forums that allow to people to participate.  The idea really is to get as much input into the topic matter as possible.”

The Turks and Caicos Immigration Summit was held at the Shore Club.