Kareem Musa Pushes Back on Legal Threat Over Immigration Leave

Minister of Labour and Immigration, Kareem Musa, is pushing back against warnings of potential legal action stemming from the government’s decision to place several immigration officers on administrative leave following last week’s disruption at the western border.  The issue traces back to the period leading up to the long Easter weekend, when a number of immigration officers, estimated between ten and twelve, reported sick, leaving the border station short-staffed and forcing authorities to reassign personnel from other areas to maintain operations.  While officials have stopped short of declaring the situation a coordinated sickout, the Director of Immigration has confirmed that an investigation is underway. In the interim, the affected officers have been placed on administrative leave, a move that has drawn criticism from the Public Service Union.  PSU President, Dean Flowers, has argued that the officers complied with public service regulations by submitting medical certificates and warned that the government’s handling of the matter could open the door to litigation.  Minister Musa, however, says he does not share that concern.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration: “Well currently at the Western border I am pleased to report that we have no interruptions in service. Everything is going smoothly. As you know a few weeks ago prior to the Easter holiday which is a very critical period for travelers both locals and visitors we had the sick out of approximately ten immigration officers at the Western border. Since then they have returned to work as you might have heard a few of them were placed on administrative leave while we carried out an investigation. That investigation is still ongoing to investigate not just the circumstances surrounding the collective sick out but also to see what are the issues because as the director and the CEO have mentioned to the media none of the information or the issues or concerns that they might have had were channeled up to management so that is a wider scope that the investigation is looking at what are the wider issues that our immigration officers are having, if there are any, if it was not in fact a sick out per se.” 

Reporter: So as an attorney how do you feel that placing these officers on administrative leave is against labor laws and could that trigger for a lawsuit against the Government ? 

Kareem Musa, Minister of Immigration: “I don’t believe so. I heard the Public Service Union president mention that perhaps there might be a defamation case in the making but there is no defamation case because nobody was even named, the immigration officers were not named and also in terms of the department’s ability in a circumstance like this where there is a right way and a wrong way to carry out industrial action the department does reserve the right to carry out an investigation and to place officers on administrative leave if they went about it the wrong way.” 

Minister Musa emphasized that the government’s actions are not punitive at this stage, but rather part of due process to determine whether any wrongdoing occurred./