Any person living illegally on the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin who entered after 2005, will have to leave as soon as proposals submitted to the island's governing body are implemented. The development comes as the Eastern Caribbean island continues to grapple with a seemingly overwhelming immigration problem.

Antillean Justice Minister David Dick disclosed Tuesday that the proposals had been presented to the lieutenant governors of the Netherlands Antilles on November 6, 2006.

The proposals were presented to the Executive Council, the island's governing body, on Tuesday and members have been given a week in which to make suggestions.

Placed into categories

According to Mr. Dick, included in the proposals is a condition that illegal residents on the island be placed into three categories. The first would be for those who had been living illegally on the island prior to 2001 and who would have gone through a second grace period during which illegal aliens were given an opportunity to acquire the necessary documentation to legalise their status. According to the justice minister, the grace period was not done "administratively correct" and feels that this period needs to be concluded.

The second category will include those living on the island illegally between 2001 and 2005. For these illegal aliens, the minister said, it will be left up to their employers, if they are employed, to submit documents for them. All relevant information for the employee must be made available to the relevant authorities and the individual must have been working for a minimum of six months. He also said that for the process to proceed, the employer must pay all the outstanding taxes for that employee.

In the third category will be those who arrived on the island after 2005. They will be asked to leave. The minister said the process is not expected to be easy but it must be done to curb the number of illegal residents on the island. It has been estimated that there are more than 25,000 illegal aliens living on the island, about half the population of legal residents on the Dutch side of the island.

Visa obligation

The treaty between the French Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands on the control of persons entering Saint Martin/Saint Maarten through the airports came into effect on November 10, 2006. The treaty extended the obligation to obtain a visa to enter Saint Martin/Saint Maarten and vice versa.

Upon the request of the Dutch Kingdom on behalf of the Netherlands Antilles, the French government has agreed to limit visa requirements to four countries in the region, Jamaica, Dominica, Guyana and Suriname. Negotiations are currently ongoing to remove Suriname from the list. "Our island nation will become a country shortly and that entails additional responsibilities," Lieutenant Governor of Saint Maarten Franklyn Richards said in a statement Tuesday. "Sharing an island with a world power such as France requires that we work together on areas of common interest that protect the well-being of our people." Based on the treaty, joint immigration controls will be instituted at the airports on the island.