Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — July to September 2019

Published: 2 October 2019 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Reggae Boyz make history at Gold Cup: The Jamaican national football team produced the greatest result in the country’s CONCACAF Gold Cup history during Q3 2019, defeating Panama 2-0 in the quarter-finals on 30 June before falling to the United States 3-1 in the semi-final on 3 July. Though Jamaica subsequently lost the third-place match to Panama 1-0 on 6 July, the achievement of reaching the semi-finals for the first time was celebrated across the global Jamaican diaspora as a watershed moment for the game in Jamaica.
• Trump ICE operations: July enforcement surge targets major US cities: The Trump administration’s announced mass ICE enforcement operation in July 2019, which targeted undocumented immigrants in ten major US cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami — cities with significant Jamaican-origin populations — produced a climate of fear and anxiety that reverberated across diaspora communities far beyond those directly targeted. Community organisations mobilised Know Your Rights outreach and emergency legal support infrastructure in response.
• Tourism: Jamaica’s record trajectory continues: Jamaica’s tourism sector maintained its record-breaking trajectory through Q3 2019, with stopover visitor arrivals for the first nine months of the year running significantly ahead of the equivalent 2018 period. The summer tourist season, which coincides with the peak of diaspora visits home, delivered strong performance across both the resort destinations and Kingston’s growing urban tourism product. The full-year 2019 total is now firmly on track to exceed 2.6 million stopover arrivals.
• Remittances: strong and growing through Q3: Jamaica’s remittance inflows through Q3 2019 maintained their strong trajectory, with BOJ data confirming year-on-year growth across all major source countries. The United States, which accounts for approximately 65 per cent of Jamaica’s remittance receipts, continued to deliver elevated volumes supported by the sustained health of US employment. The UK and Canadian contributions also grew, supported by community solidarity and the sustained wage levels of Jamaican-origin workers in those markets.
• Returnees: PICA processing and housing demand: PICA’s Returning Residents facilitation service continued to process a steady flow of returnees through Q3 2019, with continued strong interest from British-Jamaican community members approaching retirement age and from Jamaican-Americans attracted by the island’s economic momentum and quality of life proposition. The housing market in the returnee-preferred communities of St Andrew, St Catherine, and the north coast continued to register demand from diaspora buyers, with Jamaica Homes reporting sustained enquiry levels from overseas purchasers.
• National Diaspora Policy: implementation continues: Jamaica’s National Diaspora Policy, which was formally adopted in 2017 and provides the policy framework for engaging the global Jamaican diaspora across remittances, investment, skills transfer, and community engagement, continued its implementation through Q3 2019. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s diaspora affairs directorate maintained its programming of engagement across North America, the UK, and the Caribbean, building toward the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference in June 2020.

Introduction: A Quarter of Historic Achievement and Heightened Anxiety

The third quarter of 2019 combined one of the Jamaican diaspora’s great collective celebrations — the Reggae Boyz’ historic run to the CONCACAF Gold Cup semi-finals — with one of its periods of most acute anxiety, as the Trump administration’s announced July ICE enforcement operations produced a climate of fear across immigrant communities in the major US cities where Jamaica’s diaspora is most concentrated. The contrast was sharp: football joy and civic fear, shared simultaneously, illustrating the texture of the transnational Jamaican-American experience in the current political moment. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 30 September 2019.

Reggae Boyz at the Gold Cup: A Historic Semi-Final

The 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup, held across venues in the United States, will be remembered by Jamaican football fans as the tournament in which the Reggae Boyz came of age on the regional stage. Having qualified from their group and advanced through the knockout rounds with performances that blended physical intensity with growing tactical sophistication, Jamaica defeated Panama 2-0 in the quarter-final on 30 June 2019 — a result that set up the most significant match in Jamaican football history.

On 3 July 2019, Jamaica faced the United States in the Gold Cup semi-final at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. The Reggae Boyz fell 3-1 — goals from Christian Pulisic, Gyasi Zardes, and Jordan Morris against a Jamaican goal from Junior Flemmings — in a match that confirmed the Boyz’ competitiveness at the tournament’s highest level while acknowledging the quality gap that still separated the two nations. The subsequent third-place loss to Panama 1-0 on 6 July was a disappointment, but could not diminish the historic significance of the semi-final achievement.

The Gold Cup run generated massive engagement across the global Jamaican diaspora. Jamaican-American communities across New York, South Florida, Atlanta, and the tri-state area organised watch parties at Caribbean restaurants and community centres, and the shared experience of following the team through the knockout rounds reinforced a collective diaspora identity that transcended the everyday separation of transnational life. The Reggae Boyz’ Gold Cup performance — their deepest run in the tournament’s history — was celebrated in the Jamaican press and by the Jamaica Football Federation as a validation of the programme’s development trajectory.

Trump ICE Operations: July’s Climate of Fear

The Trump administration’s announcement of a major ICE enforcement operation targeting undocumented immigrants in ten major US cities — including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Miami, Baltimore, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta — in the first weeks of July 2019 produced a climate of fear and anxiety that extended far beyond the undocumented community directly at risk. In cities with large Jamaican-origin populations — particularly the greater New York metropolitan area, South Florida, and Atlanta — community organisations mobilised emergency responses that included Know Your Rights rapid-response training, emergency legal hotlines, and community notification networks.

The operation’s announced scope — a stated target of 2,000 undocumented immigrants across the ten cities — was accompanied by advance media reporting that served the dual function of generating political communications benefit for the administration and terrorising immigrant communities before the operation began. The practical effect was to drive community members — documented and undocumented alike — away from public spaces, schools, health facilities, and workplaces during the operation’s announced window, producing cascading economic and social disruption that extended far beyond the targeted individuals.

For Jamaican-American community organisations, the July operation intensified the sustained work of legal education and community protection that had characterised the response to Trump-era enforcement since 2017. The Caribbean Council of New York, the Jamaica Diaspora Organisation, and allied Caribbean-American advocacy groups maintained rapid-response networks and continued to press elected officials — particularly in sanctuary jurisdictions — to enforce their non-cooperation policies with ICE enforcement operations.

Tourism: Record Trajectory Holds

Jamaica’s tourism sector maintained its record-breaking trajectory through Q3 2019, the peak summer season for diaspora family visits and a critical period for the resort destinations of Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios, and Port Antonio. Stopover visitor arrivals for the nine months to September were running well ahead of the equivalent 2018 period, and the Jamaica Tourist Board’s forward booking data for Q4 pointed to a continuation of the positive trend. The sector’s performance was underpinned by North American source market strength, new air capacity from United and American Airlines, and continued investment in the hotel product.

The summer quarter also brought the annual influx of diaspora visits: Jamaican-Americans, British-Jamaicans, and Jamaican-Canadians returning for holidays, family events, and property inspections. The intersection of diaspora visits and tourism statistics is significant: diaspora visitors who stay with family rather than in hotels are not captured in accommodation-based tourism data but represent a substantial economic flow through local spending on food, transportation, retail, and entertainment. Their visits also drive the real estate market, as diaspora members who visit family are frequently at the earliest stages of exploring property purchase or return migration planning.

Remittances: Sustained Growth

Jamaica’s remittance inflows through Q3 2019 maintained their strong year-on-year growth trajectory, with Bank of Jamaica data confirming continued gains across all major source countries. The United States, which accounts for the largest share of Jamaica’s remittance receipts, continued to deliver elevated volumes supported by the sustained health of the US labour market — with unemployment at multi-decade lows and wage growth solid in the service sectors where Jamaican-American workers are concentrated. Canada and the United Kingdom also contributed growth, reflecting stable employment conditions and the sustained commitment of diaspora members to family financial support.

The summer quarter is a period of elevated remittance volumes related to the academic calendar: school fees for the September term, university registration costs, and back-to-school expenses generate a predictable seasonal peak in August-September flows. BOJ data confirmed this seasonal pattern was playing out normally in 2019, contributing to Q3’s strong aggregate performance. The full-year 2019 trajectory toward a new annual record was firmly established by the quarter’s end.

Returnees: PICA and Housing Market

PICA’s Returning Residents facilitation service processed a steady stream of returnees through Q3 2019, continuing the pattern of sustained return migration driven primarily by retirement-age British-Jamaicans and career-stage Jamaican-Americans attracted by the island’s economic momentum and quality of life offering. The typical profile of the UK-origin returnee in 2019 — Windrush generation descendant or their children, with NHS pension or equivalent retirement income, purchasing a purpose-built property in St Andrew or the north coast — continued to be the dominant returnee demographic from that source country.

PICA’s Pre-Return Orientation Seminars, held in London, Birmingham, and other UK cities, continued to generate strong attendance through Q3 2019, connecting prospective returnees with practical guidance on the customs duties framework, the National Housing Trust’s diaspora mortgage product, tax incentives for returning residents, and the healthcare and school registration processes that determine the practical success of a return move. Jamaica Homes’ engagement with diaspora buyers continued to reflect the pipeline of prospective returnees at various stages of the decision-making process.

National Diaspora Policy: Implementation Progress

Jamaica’s National Diaspora Policy, formally adopted in 2017 as the first comprehensive government framework for engaging the global Jamaican diaspora, continued its implementation through Q3 2019. The policy’s five strategic pillars — economic engagement, civic and social participation, cultural expression, diaspora services, and diaspora governance — provided the framework for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s diaspora affairs programming across North America, the UK, and the Caribbean. Progress across all five pillars was reviewed through the diaspora advisory committee structure established under the policy.

The policy’s economic engagement pillar — focused on channelling diaspora remittances, investment capital, and professional expertise into productive Jamaican economic activity — remained the most strategically significant and the most challenging to implement. The gap between diaspora economic potential and actual investment flows has been a persistent theme of successive biennial conferences. The 9th Biennial in June 2020 is being positioned as an opportunity to move from aspiration to structured investment facilitation, with concrete mechanisms for diaspora investment in housing, agriculture, and technology sectors under development.

Outlook for Q4 2019

The fourth quarter of 2019 will be shaped by the Christmas remittance peak, the continuation of Jamaica’s tourism record trajectory into its year-end booking season, and the ongoing management of the Trump immigration environment by Jamaican-American community organisations. Brexit’s resolution — or its further extension — will continue to affect British-Jamaican community planning. And the build-up to the June 2020 Biennial will accelerate as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade opens conference registration and develops the programme. We report next from 2 January 2020.

This Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update is researched and published by Jamaica Homes News. Sources consulted include the Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Nationwide News Network, RJR News, Caribbean National Weekly, Bank of Jamaica, Planning Institute of Jamaica, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and PICA. All figures and developments are accurate as of the publication date, 2 October 2019.

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