You know, some people really amaze me. When you realise the number of people who apply for United States and British visas every day, if all those applications for visas were granted, Jamaica's population would be halved in a heartbeat. Planes couldn't leave this country fast enough the way some people are eager to leave, convinced that the grass is always greener on the other side, no matter where that other side is.

Thankfully, that has not been, and will never be, the case.

I can see the logic in people migrating to a new country to seek out new opportunities. You know, work, take some classes or enrol in university. They take advantage of opportunities never afforded them here in Jamaica. I have friends living abroad - all over the world - who while here in Jamaica failed to display an aptitude for anything except drinking liquor and smoking weed.

Those who didn't know them, and witnessing their habits, readily assumed they would have amounted to nothing. The thing is, though, many of them were very ambitious but did not see a way out here in Jamaica. Fortunately, they had family abroad who filed for them and got them up, and in what seemed like an instant their lives changed. A number of them now own real estate firms, some are engineers, some are doctors, some are entrepreneurs and very successful.

However, these are not the people I want to mention today. The ones that concern me are the ones who migrate and become criminals. Seriously, did they really need to migrate to do that? They could have stayed right here, but I guess 'foreign' represents greater opportunities for criminals too. Just yesterday, I was reading about a man, Wasford Uriah Steer, who is about to be deported from Canada after racking up 76 convictions and being considered one of Canada's most-wanted men. He was arrested this last time for trying to pimp a 16-year-old girl. Actually,, he was deported from Canada before and then snuck back in some time in 1999, only to commit more crimes.

opportunity

Now this is the part that kills me. Somewhere here in Jamaica there is a hard-working man or woman who would really thrive if they get an opportunity to migrate to Canada. And when I say thrive, I mean thrive legally, just like many of my friends who have migrated in recent years. However, because of people like Steer, they may never get that opportunity.

Seventy-six convictions - I wouldn't want you in my country either. But it is not Steer who is going to suffer the most. There is going be some guy going about his business one day in Canada and, like they're doing now in the United States, they will take away his green card or residency status because of a minor infraction, like an expired driver's licence, or they end up in a fight that causes someone to be harmed.

The way I see it, there should be an island somewhere, where they send deportees like Steer. A place where there are nothing but trees, bushes, vast expanses of land and, of course, fellow deportees - those who are most criminal-minded. They should not be allowed back here, or wherever they are deported from. All they are going to do is create problems, problems that their own countries cannot afford.

There are certain people who should not be allowed to coexist with law-abiding, hard-working people. Take, for example, those fools who tried to break into the house of the most recent Rising Stars winner, who were no doubt seeking to relieve the poor girl of her winnings. If they are caught they should be deported to somewhere like that island I just mentioned, somewhere where there are ferocious wild animals who are not too keen on sharing their habitat with a bunch of worthless people.

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