Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — January to March 2014

Published: 2 April 2014 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• MH370: an aviation mystery that gripped the diaspora world: Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370’s disappearance on 8 March 2014 — with 239 passengers and crew aboard, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing — became one of the most intensively covered aviation mysteries in history, with search operations spanning the Indian Ocean and the SIO’s vast southern reaches. The disappearance had no direct Jamaica-specific dimension but its months-long domination of global news cycles affected the information environment in which diaspora community members were following the issues that did directly affect them. The case’s particular resonance in diaspora communities was its demonstration of how a single moment of departure — boarding a routine flight — could produce absolute and irresolvable uncertainty for families across the world.
• Russia annexes Crimea: Cold War echoes for Caribbean communities: Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 — following the Maidan revolution in Kiev and the flight of President Yanukovych — produced the gravest confrontation between Russia and the Western powers since the Cold War’s end. For Jamaica’s diaspora communities, the immediate practical implications were limited, but the crisis’s geopolitical dimensions — including the EU’s and US’s sanctions response, the energy price volatility implications, and the demonstration that post-Cold War international norms were less stable than assumed — provided the unsettling backdrop to a quarter whose domestic concerns were already substantial.
• 6th Biennial: preparation intensifies for June 2014: With the 6th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference now less than three months away, MFAFT’s diaspora engagement office was finalising working group structures, conference logistics, and the diaspora community invitation and registration process. The 6th Biennial’s preparatory consultations — held in diaspora communities across North America and the UK through Q1 2014 — were identifying the priority themes that conference participants most wanted to address: immigration reform’s implications, Jamaica’s IMF programme and investment climate, returnee facilitation, and the use of diaspora philanthropy for community development projects.
• US immigration reform: the legislative window closes: Q1 2014’s immigration reform landscape was defined by the growing recognition that the bipartisan bill that the Senate had passed in June 2013 was unlikely to clear the Republican-controlled House. Speaker Boehner’s publication of immigration reform “principles” in January had raised brief hopes, but the House Republican conference’s internal opposition quickly buried those hopes. Caribbean community advocacy organisations maintained their lobbying effort while increasingly pivoting attention to the Obama administration’s executive action authority as the most realistic near-term relief vehicle.
• Jamaica economy: IMF programme on track: Jamaica’s IMF Extended Fund Facility programme, now in its second year under PM Portia Simpson Miller’s PNP government, continued to meet its quarterly performance criteria through Q1 2014. The programme’s fiscal adjustment requirements — including public sector wage restraint and primary surplus targets — were producing their intended macroeconomic effects, with inflation declining and foreign exchange reserves stabilising. The social costs of adjustment — reduced public services, wage compression, and continued high unemployment — were real, and were reflected in the diaspora community’s continued essential role as a social safety net through remittances.
• Remittances Q1 2014: first-quarter positive: Bank of Jamaica data confirmed Q1 2014 as a positive year-on-year remittance quarter, with the US source market’s continued employment health and the UK’s economic recovery supporting steady flows from both major diaspora populations. Total 2014 annual flows were expected to reach approximately US$2.2 billion, continuing the growth trend of the post-financial-crisis recovery period.

Introduction: Global Instability, Local Preparation

The first quarter of 2014 balanced a turbulent global backdrop — MH370, Ukraine, the continued Syrian civil war — against the constructive domestic preparation of the 6th Biennial’s approach and Jamaica’s continuing IMF programme milestones. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 31 March 2014.

Immigration Reform: From Capitol Hill to the White House

The immigration reform debate’s centre of gravity had, by the end of Q1 2014, effectively shifted from the legislative to the executive branch. Caribbean community advocacy organisations recognised this transition and adjusted their strategy accordingly: while maintaining pressure on Republican House members in districts with significant Caribbean-American constituents, the organisations increasingly focused their Washington engagement on the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, pressing for maximum use of executive authority to defer deportations and provide work authorisations to long-term residents and parents of US citizens.

Outlook for Q2 2014

Q2 2014 brings the 6th Biennial in June — the series’ most eagerly anticipated gathering in years — the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the continued Ukraine/Russia crisis, and the immigration reform debate’s final legislative chapter. Jamaica’s tourism sector enters its shoulder season. We report next from 2 July 2014.

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 April 2014.

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