Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — April to June 2013

Published: 2 July 2013 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Senate passes immigration reform: the most hopeful moment in a decade: The US Senate’s passage on 27 June 2013 of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernisation Act — the comprehensive immigration reform bill negotiated by the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators — was the most significant advance in US immigration reform in a generation. The bill passed 68–32, with 14 Republican senators joining all Democrats and independents, and its provisions included a 13-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented residents, a new temporary worker programme, enhanced border security investment, and reforms to the family reunification visa system. For Jamaican-American community members who had waited years for this moment, the Senate vote produced genuine hope — tempered immediately by recognition that the Republican-controlled House was a far more difficult legislative environment.
• DOMA struck down: Windsor v. United States changes federal landscape: The Supreme Court’s 26 June ruling in United States v. Windsor — striking down the Defence of Marriage Act’s definition of marriage as exclusively heterosexual for federal purposes — produced immediate and practical consequences for same-sex couples across the United States, including those in the Jamaican-American community. The ruling meant that legally married same-sex couples were now entitled to the full range of federal benefits previously available only to heterosexual married couples, including immigration sponsorship rights. For the small but present number of Jamaican-American same-sex couples navigating immigration status questions, Windsor was directly consequential.
• Snowden revelations: global privacy recalibrated: Edward Snowden’s June 2013 revelations about the NSA’s PRISM programme and the broad scope of US electronic surveillance — including the collection of phone metadata from millions of American residents and the surveillance of allied governments’ communications — produced a global debate about privacy, security, and the relationship between states and their citizens that had particular resonance for diaspora communities who had always known that their international communications were subject to levels of scrutiny not applied to domestic correspondence.
• Jamaica’s IMF programme: the EFF begins: The Jamaica government of PM Portia Simpson Miller signed a new four-year Extended Fund Facility agreement with the IMF in May 2013, replacing the previous Stand-By Arrangement and committing Jamaica to a deeper and longer programme of fiscal consolidation and structural reform. The programme’s targets — a primary surplus of 7.5 per cent of GDP, public debt reduction, and structural reforms in the tax system, public sector, and financial sector — were ambitious, and the programme’s social implications — including public sector wage restraint and reduced public investment — were significant for Jamaica’s domestic population and for the diaspora’s assessment of the island’s economic trajectory.
• 5th Biennial: one year of follow-through: One year on from the 5th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference of June 2012, MFAFT’s implementation teams published their first annual assessment of progress across the conference’s working group commitments. The review confirmed positive progress in trade facilitation and diaspora philanthropic frameworks, identified areas where implementation had lagged, and set the agenda for the second year of the 5th Biennial’s implementation cycle as planning for the 6th Biennial (June 2014) began.
• Remittances Q2 2013: modest growth continues: Bank of Jamaica data for Q2 2013 showed continued year-on-year remittance growth, modest but sustained, reflecting the gradual US economic recovery and the maintained commitment of diaspora senders to their family obligations. Total 2013 annual flows were on track for approximately US$2.1 billion. The Senate’s immigration reform vote — and the hope it generated — may have had a positive psychological effect on diaspora community members’ engagement with Jamaica, with several community organisations reporting elevated interest in investment and returnee facilitation inquiries.

Introduction: A Historic Legislative Moment

The Senate’s immigration reform vote gave Q2 2013 its defining note of hope, while the DOMA ruling, the Snowden revelations, and Jamaica’s new IMF programme provided the quarter’s broader context. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 30 June 2013.

Immigration Reform: From the Senate to the House

The Senate bill’s 68-vote margin — above the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster and approaching the two-thirds threshold that would signal genuine bipartisan momentum — was the strongest immigration reform vote the chamber had produced in decades. For Caribbean community advocacy organisations, the challenge now shifted entirely to the House, where Speaker Boehner’s unofficial “Hastert Rule” — refusing to bring to the floor any bill that lacked support from a majority of the majority party’s members — was the primary obstacle. Caribbean community members with Republican-district House representatives were being mobilised for district-level pressure campaigns, constituent meetings, and the kind of personal advocacy that could influence members whose immigration positions were genuinely movable.

Jamaica’s IMF Programme: The Hard Road to Stability

The Extended Fund Facility’s four-year timeframe represented a realistic acknowledgement of the depth of Jamaica’s structural fiscal challenges: a public debt ratio of approximately 140 per cent of GDP, one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere, required years of primary surplus maintenance to put on a sustainable downward trajectory. For the diaspora community, the IMF programme’s progression mattered both directly — through its implications for the macro-environment within which remittance-receiving families managed their finances — and as an indicator of Jamaica’s investment climate. A Jamaica that was meeting its IMF targets and demonstrating fiscal credibility was a more attractive destination for diaspora investment than one mired in fiscal instability.

Outlook for Q3 2013

Q3 2013 brings the Zimmerman verdict (expected momentarily as this edition publishes), the IAAF World Championships in Moscow in August — where Bolt will seek to restore his 100 metres championship crown — and the immigration reform bill’s House fate. Mandela’s health is a daily concern. We report next from 2 October 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 July 2013.

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