Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — April to June 2006

Published: 2 July 2006 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• 2nd Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference Concludes in Montego Bay
• Simpson Miller Hosts Conference as Jamaica’s First Female PM
• Day Without Immigrants Rallies Redefine US Immigration Debate
• FIFA World Cup Opens in Germany: Caribbean Diaspora Unites
• New Returnee Facilitation Commitments Emerge From Conference
• Senate Immigration Bill Clears Chamber but Faces House Resistance

Introduction: A Quarter of Historic Firsts

The second quarter of 2006 was defined by historic firsts. Jamaica’s diaspora community reached the quarter under the leadership of the country’s first female prime minister — Portia Simpson Miller, in office since 30 March — and concluded it having just participated in the 2nd Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, the first of the series to be convened under her administration. Across the Atlantic and the Pacific, the FIFA World Cup united Caribbean communities in the global football festival. In the United States, the largest civic demonstrations in a generation reshaped the politics of immigration reform. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 30 June 2006.

The 2nd Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference: New Commitments, Higher Expectations

The 2nd Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, held this month in Montego Bay under the theme “Diaspora: Partners in Development,” concluded with a more structured set of commitments than the inaugural 2004 conference that launched the series. Portia Simpson Miller, in her first major diaspora-facing engagement as prime minister, addressed delegates with an emphasis on deepening the partnership between the island and its communities abroad — framing diaspora engagement not as a welfare obligation of the state but as a strategic development partnership in which both sides had rights and responsibilities.

The conference adopted working group recommendations across five areas: returnee facilitation and PICA processing reform; diaspora investment frameworks including a proposed diaspora bond; consular service quality improvements at high-volume posts in London, New York, Toronto, and Miami; healthcare professional recognition for Jamaican-trained nurses and doctors returning from abroad; and cultural sector engagement including diaspora artists, musicians, and cultural workers. The commitment on customs duty concessions for returning residents — one of the most consistently raised concerns in diaspora community consultations since the first Biennial — was noted as requiring legislative action in the next parliamentary session.

The conference’s diaspora delegates, representing Jamaican community organisations across North America, the United Kingdom, Canada, and other diaspora nodes, brought to Montego Bay a set of concerns shaped by three years of institutional engagement since the first Biennial. The maturation of the conference process was visible in the specificity of the proposals: less high-level aspiration, more concrete implementation timelines and accountability mechanisms. The MFAFT committed to quarterly implementation reviews and a formal six-month progress report.

Portia Simpson Miller: The Diaspora’s First Female Prime Minister

When Portia Simpson Miller was elected PNP president on 25 February 2006 and sworn in as Jamaica’s prime minister on 30 March — succeeding P.J. Patterson, who retired after fourteen years in office — she became not only Jamaica’s first female prime minister but the first woman to lead a Caribbean nation in the English-speaking Caribbean in the modern era. For Jamaica’s diaspora communities — in which women form the majority of community organisation leadership, church networks, and formal and informal remittance channels — the transition carried a significance that went beyond party politics.

Community events across the diaspora through April and May 2006 marked the transition with a mixture of celebration of the historic milestone and sober assessment of the governance challenges ahead. Crime, economic reform, and the management of Jamaica’s IMF-related fiscal obligations were the issues diaspora community leaders consistently raised in their reflections on the new administration’s early weeks. The 2nd Biennial conference, which Simpson Miller hosted in June, was her first major opportunity to address the diaspora on her own terms — and the substance and tone of that address were closely attended to by community organisations assessing her administration’s diaspora priorities.

Day Without Immigrants: The Largest US Civic Mobilisation in Decades

The 1 May 2006 ‘A Day Without Immigrants’ national boycott and demonstration — building on the March 2006 demonstrations that brought hundreds of thousands into American streets — produced what observers described as the largest coordinated civic action in the United States since the civil rights movement. Estimates of total participation across American cities ranged from 1.5 to 2 million people, with major demonstrations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Miami, and dozens of smaller cities. Businesses with large immigrant workforces closed or reported near-total absenteeism in many sectors.

For Caribbean-American diaspora communities — and specifically for Jamaican-American communities navigating US immigration policy — the May 1 demonstrations were a visible assertion of the scale and irreplaceability of immigrant economic contribution. The Senate’s passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act on 25 May 2006 provided the legislative momentum that the spring demonstrations had helped to generate. The bill, sponsored by Senators Kennedy and McCain among others, included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, a guest worker programme, and increased border security. Its passage in the Senate was celebrated in diaspora communities; the challenge of reconciling it with a House that had passed a much more restrictive enforcement-only bill (H.R. 4437) remained the central immigration legislative test of the year.

FIFA World Cup Germany 2006: Caribbean Diaspora United

The FIFA World Cup in Germany, which opened on 9 June 2006, unified Caribbean diaspora communities across North America and Europe in the global football festival even in the absence of Caribbean national team qualification. The tournament’s early group stage unfolded as this update is published, with the Caribbean diaspora watching through the lens of the national teams of host nations. England’s campaign attracted close attention in British-Jamaican communities, while Caribbean communities with Latin American connections followed the progress of Trinidad and Tobago — the only Caribbean nation in the tournament, in its first World Cup since 1966 — with pride in the region’s representation. We report next from 2 October 2006.

This Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update is researched and published by Jamaica Homes News. Sources include Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and PICA. All figures and developments are accurate as of the publication date, 2 July 2006.

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