St. Maarten Private Eye

Last time I checked government contracted a firm to carry out the work. The firm is who took on Illegal workers. I think it sends a good message that this happened. If it didn't the other story would be "you see! government not policing itself" "they crooks!". Damned if you do and damned if you don't with you writers here.

Your government contracts a firm that hires illegals. Your government allowed that practice to continue for a year unchecked. Your government is a party to the victimization and exploitation of migrant workers. Your government is an accomplice in the inhumane treatment that migrants face.

Where is your Commissioner of Labor, man of action? The one who promised to legalize and regularize foreign workers?

It is your government that is foolish, stupid!

The fact remains that SXM cannot complete any project at the moment without illegal migrant workers. The island is on a over drive building boom and something will BOOM and explode very soon if this rampant over building continues.
And we cannot just make every illegal legal, they are coming in by the hundreds, some come yesterday, I am sure many more will be seen coming in via the beaches with the high seas coming up.
Anyone who lives on a hill over looking a beach has seen this happening, small boat comes in close to shore at 5am-6am, many persons jumping out, people start to run, sometimes a car is waiting for them.
What can take place is that we give these illegal migrants a stay of 3 months, make them pay a fee to SVB if they work, after 3 months they have to leave no matter what.
Our man of action has dealt with this issue in a naive fashion, legalising all these people is not the answer, new ones are still coming in by the droves hoping that they get the oppertunity to become legal, maybe even get the Dutch Nationality, putting a strain on our schools, medical center, roads, housing, infrastructure with too many of them living in shanty areas contributing to the heavy load of sewage running down the street.

St.Maarten at this point is bursting with illegal workers. Many of these illegal workers call home and tell their family members and friends how lax we are with our immigration system. One illegal person told me that they have it down to a science in Jamaica.
They would borough money from someone on St.Maarten to show immigration officials that they have suffient funds, thereafter these person(s) would refund the money back to their sponsor. They are also told not to give the immigration any long talk, if possible don't answer any questions. This person got thru the gate and is now living and working on SXM. Yes, we need people to work in our so called boom, but these people should be legalized, so I agree totally with the post above. They should be given an ID # which will be valid for X amount of time. If they are caught without this document, they should be banned for X amount of years and their employer fined.
We the tax payers are paying enough. We cannot support the entire world with jobs, housing and education. Enough is enough.

On the bright side, we will see a whole new contigency of Police and RST coming to SXM in a couple weeks. It's time to clean house, XMAS is coming and a lot of people will be seeing their family back home ,courtesy of the SXM tax payers, whether they like it or not.

I always think it's funny to hear people rant and rave about illegal workers in a trade that local people are to damn proud to do. We shout about victimization of illegal people from one side of our mouth then spew crap about "notorious for hiring illegals" from the other. Maybe they wouldn't hire illegals if 100 locals would step up and take the jobs. But no, that kind of work is below locals. So what is a firm supposed to do. Get everybody out of their offices and build the thing themselves? Sometimes we forget that we live on ST MAARTEN not in the United States with a large work force. And by the way, how is the firm notorious for hiring illegals? Because of this one time? Or do you have some sort of proof?

Every employer will employ illegals if they are able to because they are cheaper. >Look at Anguilla where one of the top resorts being built there emply indians and were paying them $200 per month. Development and progress should b matched to suit the needs of the people of the island.

Caribdude

The SVB will show you the proof of the employers (Friends of the Government) who deduct monies for taxes and health insurance from their illegal employees and do not transfer the monies to the Island Receivers or the SVB. If the money is going elsewhere to someone's pocket so they can look the other way, then again the government is stealing from itself.

Go figure!