Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — October to December 2012

Published: 2 January 2013 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Obama re-elected: a mandate for immigration reform: President Obama’s re-election on 6 November 2012 — winning 332 Electoral College votes to Mitt Romney’s 206, with decisive margins in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio — was received by Jamaican-American communities as both a personal political triumph and a mandate for the second-term legislative agenda that included immigration reform. The election’s analysis was clear: Obama had won 71 per cent of the Hispanic vote and substantial majorities of Black, Asian-American, and other minority community votes, while Romney’s restrictionist immigration positioning during the Republican primaries — including his “self-deportation” comment — had contributed to his historically low minority vote share. Caribbean community civic organisations that had invested in voter registration and mobilisation efforts celebrated a result that reflected their communities’ electoral engagement.
• Hurricane Sandy devastates Caribbean community New York: Hurricane Sandy’s landfall in New Jersey on 29 October 2012 — as a post-tropical cyclone with the energy and surge of a Category 1 hurricane — produced the worst flooding in New York City’s recorded history, inundating the subway system, cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes, and destroying neighbourhoods in Staten Island, Lower Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn where Caribbean communities were concentrated. Flatbush, Crown Heights, Canarsie, and Jamaica (Queens) were among the most affected Caribbean community areas. The storm’s impact on Caribbean community members — whose renters’ insurance coverage was often limited and whose recovery resource access was constrained by language, documentation, and awareness barriers — was severe and lasting.
• DACA’s first applications: the programme takes hold: The DACA programme, announced in June 2012 and opening for applications in August, processed its first several hundred thousand applications through Q4 2012. For Jamaican-American young adults who met the programme’s criteria — having arrived in the US before their 16th birthday, having resided continuously since June 2007, and meeting education or military service requirements — DACA’s first year was transformative: the work authorisation permit, Social Security number, and deportation deferral it provided unlocked access to employment, higher education, and driving licences that the undocumented status had previously denied.
• Jamaica: economic stabilisation challenges: Jamaica’s economy ended 2012 in a difficult position, with the IMF Stand-By Arrangement’s performance criteria coming under pressure and the government negotiating with the Fund about the path forward. The National Debt Exchange — a domestic debt restructuring that would be a precondition for any new IMF arrangement — was under discussion, and the fiscal adjustment required to stabilise Jamaica’s debt trajectory was both technically demanding and politically difficult. For the diaspora community, the island’s economic challenges reinforced the importance of remittances as the social safety net that cushioned Jamaican families from the adjustment’s most acute impacts.
• Christmas remittances: Sandy-impacted but resilient: Bank of Jamaica preliminary data pointed to 2012 closing with total annual remittances of approximately US$2.1 billion, a broadly stable performance relative to 2011 despite the Sandy disruption. December’s traditional surge produced the year’s highest monthly flows, demonstrating the diaspora community’s maintained commitment to Jamaica even in a year of extraordinary external stress.
• 5th Biennial: six months of follow-through: Six months on from the 5th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference of June 2012, MFAFT’s first implementation review was published in December 2012. The review confirmed that the working group structures were functioning, that the advisory committee meetings were being held, and that the Biennial’s trade facilitation and returnee facilitation commitments were advancing through their planned implementation timelines.

Introduction: Election, Storm, and Resilience

Q4 2012 was defined by two events of extraordinary consequence for Jamaican-American communities: Obama’s re-election and Hurricane Sandy. The election provided hope; the storm demonstrated the diaspora community’s vulnerability and, in its aftermath, its resilience. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 31 December 2012.

Sandy: The Caribbean Community’s Storm

Hurricane Sandy’s impact on New York’s Caribbean communities was in many ways more severe than its coverage suggested. The storm’s public narrative focused on Hoboken’s flooding, Lower Manhattan’s power outage, and the Rockaways’ devastation — real and terrible — but the Caribbean community’s Flatbush flooding, Canarsie’s storm surge, and East New York’s structural damage were equally severe and served by less recovery infrastructure. Community organisations — Caribbean diaspora churches, neighbourhood associations, and civic groups — mobilised relief operations that demonstrated both the community’s internal solidarity and the gaps in the official disaster recovery system’s reach into immigrant and minority communities.

Outlook for 2013

2013 opens with Obama’s second inaugural on 21 January, the Gang of Eight immigration reform negotiations underway, Jamaica’s IMF discussions at a critical juncture, and the Sandy recovery’s long middle phase ahead. We report next from 2 April 2013.

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 January 2013.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomes Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com