Incumbent Territorial at Large Representative Hon Shereen Flax Charles shared an emotional moment in the House of Assembly on Monday as she rose to debate the “Immigration and Passport Validation Bill”.
The bill in question was brought to the House of Assembly to validate the belonger status of 688 certificate holders whose status came under question after an audit uncovered an oversight made during the Fast Track Programme in 2019.
Flax Charles said that it was important for legislators to look beyond politics and consider the humanness of the issue at hand.
She shared that all too often, persons in the Virgin Islands, many of which have made valuable contributions, are looked down upon because they were not born in the Virgin Islands or are of foreign descent.
The legislator said that she too has faced the challenges of being labelled a “half breed” in the Virgin Islands.
She pointed to her experience in the 2019 General Election, at which point she ran on a Virgin Islands Party ticket, as an example of her experience with xenophobic behaviour. She claims that she was told to stop revealing that her mother was a national of Antigua and Barbuda.