Griffith: Immigrants should be regularised

Dazzle Carrington (NYLO Intern)

Former National Security Gary Griffith yesterday said immigrants should be given a six-months window to secure jobs as this is a better way for the current minister to handle the situation. He believed it might be a better stance to regularise immigrants already in the country looking for work or might already have jobs as it could be a way of ensuring employers who hired these immigrants, pay taxes for them.

Griffith said this could help generate as much as $2 billion for the local economy which might be a better initiative than the property tax the government wants to implement. He said government should evaluate the immigrants who are here instead of simply arresting and returning them to their place of origin.

The former minister said that when Trinbagonians are sent back to this country from foreign places things are rarely done about it. He also said if a person from another country was deported from here, they were able to go to their embassy or government and complain about Trinidad and Tobago abusing the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) agreement, when this was not the case.

He said this country should strive for sufficient use of labour and other factors of competitive production leading to greater variety and quantity of products and services and the these immigrants may be a good avenue for this.