New Immigration Bill coming this 2024.
“We will have a new Immigration Bill before this Parliament before the end of this year.”
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley made this clear as she laid the Appropriation Bill in the Lower House, today, Budget Day, March 18.
She said, “The Draft has been prepared and is now the subject of commentary within government. When it comes here, it will go to the Governance Committee for them to be able to reach out to the wider Barbados.”
Barbados got its first Immigration Act back in the 1970s. The Act commenced officially on February 2, 1976. Subsequently, pages have been added and appealed with sections amended over the past 48 years. The most recent amendments came almost 20 years ago.
In 2008, there was an amendment under the Delegation section whereby a Minister does not lose his powers but may delegate specific persons in his ministry or under his domain to act on his behalf to conduct certain duties.
Since then, in 2009, there was a Green Paper on the Comprehensive Review of Immigration Policy and Proposals for Legislative Reform. The Green Paper contained numerous recommendations. Some of the recommendations were to modernise the document however, others were to remove inconsistencies which arose through the partial amendments over the years and some also sought to remove gender biases in alignment with the Constitution. Initially processes for citizenship were different for men than for women. The Green Paper made recommendations for repeals and even purported alternatives in some cases for repeals, instead instead it prescribed options especially in the aim of maintaining national security.
