A prominent business leader in Bermuda has claimed that the government’s failure to change that country’s immigration policies has caused an “unconscionable” effect on the local Portuguese community
Robert Pires, the chief executive of Bermuda Investment Advisory Services has said that mixed-status families remain the biggest challenge to the Portuguese community, many of whom have lived on the island for decades without citizenship. A fourth-generation Bermudian, he suggested that the lack of legislative reform was partly due to racial hostility which he claimed the ruling Progressive Labour Party had historically exploited for political reasons.
Wayne Caines, Bermuda’s minister of national security, responded to his allegations by roundly denouncing this assertion, and insisted the government was committed to finding the right balance when it came to immigration reform. He called any suggestion of a racial agenda inflammatory and irresponsible.
Pires was of the opinion that the government had not prioritised the issue of mixed-status families, arguing that from a human rights perspective, reform should have happened more than two decades previously as many persons who had been resident in Bermuda for 30 or 40 years, had lived legally in the territory and contributed to society during that period still had no rights.
Pires also made reference to the privy council case of Bermudian-born Michael Barbosa who was denied Bermudian status on the grounds that he was born to non-Bermudian parents, and suggested that one reason for the delay might be that government was waiting to hear the outcome of that matter.
The suggestion that comprehensive immigration reform was not an issue at the forefront of government’s legislative policy was also rejected by Minister Caines who maintained that his government was sensitive to the issues facing the local Portuguese community.
The Progressive Labour Party had pledged in its 2018 Throne Speech that it would address issues surrounding mixed-status families during the course of that legislative session. A Bill was initially scheduled to be tabled before parliament in July 2019, but was subsequently postponed. No new timetable for the legislation has been given and the premier, David Burt, did not include immigration reform when setting out his party’s upcoming legislative agenda recently.
