Work Progressing on Global Immigration Card

Work is progressing on the creation of a global immigration card for Jamaicans living overseas.

A feasibility study to show how the card will be implemented is being prepared for discussion at the upcoming 7th Biennial Jamaica 55 Diaspora Conference.

Speaking at a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank’, Under-Secretary for Diaspora Protocol and Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Ambassador Sharon Saunders, said the Ministry is working with the Ministry of National Security and a Diaspora Task Force within the Economic Growth Council (EGC) to develop the card.

The card is one of the 18 EGC targets announced by the Government.

“That is in progress. It will allow for Jamaicans in the diaspora to come in and join the queue. As Jamaicans, you travel on a Canadian passport but if you have a global immigration card you can join the Jamaican queue and there may be certain privileges. It will become a loyalty card,” she said.

She said the card is intended “to increase affinity and to raise the level of consciousness of Jamaicans”.

Turning to the Jamaica 55 Diaspora Conference, slated for July 23 to 26 at the Jamaica Conference Centre, in downtown Kingston, Ambassador Saunders informed that it will be a platform for persons to share ideas and experiences, and create new alliances.

She said a great deal has come out of previous conferences, adding that businesses and relationships have developed through the networks at the event.

“The diaspora is alive and well, and the conference embraces and affirms that our Jamaican family overseas is part of us,” she added.

Ambassador Saunders said that Conference attendees will experience “the ease of doing business” and the fast-tracked completion of a wide range of services.

“We are facilitating the easier access to some of the services that Jamaicans in the diaspora need, and in other circumstances have to wait, perhaps too long, for their land titles, or their birth certificates, or their marriage certificates,” she said.