Amended Immigration Policy St. Maarten Close Amended Immigration Policy St. Maarten Page Image Page Content On Thursday, April 29th 2021, the Minister of Justice published, in the National Gazette (‘Landscourant’), a Ministerial Decree that constitutes a number of enhancements to the Guidelines of 2012 (‘Richtlijnen 2012’) pertaining to the application of the National Ordinance on Admittance and Expulsion (‘Landsverordening toelating en uitzetting / Ltu’). The aim of this adaptation of the Immigration Policy is to emphasize and give further content to the policy point of departure that St. Maarten, being a small and fragile economy, must apply a restrictive Immigration Policy. Though it is common knowledge that immigration policy in particular is a fluid issue that needs to be adapted to the ever-changing socio-economic factors of society, the Immigration Policy as reflected in the Guidelines of 2012 had not been updated by previous Justice Ministers in the past nine years. The devastating effects of Hurricane Irma in September of 2017 on St. Maarten’s economy as well as the even more devastating effects of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic on St. Maarten’s economy were the main factors that led this Justice Minister to subject our Immigration Policy to a thorough review.