A Democratic Labour Party spokesman has challenged lawmakers to justify how proposed immigration and citizenship reforms would directly address labour shortages and demographic decline, arguing that the measures risk prioritising accelerated citizenship pathways over targeted labour market solutions.

DLP shadow legal affairs minister Corey Greenidge told Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on economic and productive sectors examining the Immigration and Barbados Citizenship Bill, that while the government had identified legitimate concerns, it had failed to establish a clear link between the problems and the solutions being proposed.

“If we accept that Barbados faces legitimate concerns with respect to its demographics, our concern is that the solutions identified in these new bills do not actually address the problems,” Greenidge told the committee.