Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — October to December 2019

Published: 2 January 2020 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Record remittances: 2019 full-year total reaches US$2.9 billion: Jamaica’s full-year 2019 remittance performance reached approximately US$2.9 billion — a record high and a figure representing approximately 16 per cent of GDP. The Q4 Christmas season produced the year’s strongest quarterly flows, with diaspora members sending accelerated support for school expenses, household improvements, and Christmas celebrations. The record reflects continued expansion of formal transfer channels, digital platform adoption, and sustained strength of Jamaican-origin employment across major diaspora source countries.
• Tourism: Jamaica posts a record year for stopover arrivals: Jamaica’s tourism sector delivered a record-breaking 2019, with stopover visitor arrivals projected to exceed 2.6 million for the full year. Strong growth from the United States, solid Canadian performance, and targeted European market development drove the result. The record year is generating optimism for the sector’s 2020 trajectory and creating professional and investment opportunities for returning residents with international hospitality and business backgrounds.
• Brexit: Boris Johnson’s election victory and the January 2020 departure: Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s 80-seat Conservative majority at the December 2019 general election made the UK’s January 31, 2020 Brexit departure all but certain. British-Jamaican communities with settled status or right of abode are not directly affected by EU withdrawal, but mixed EU-non-EU households and those with European family connections face practical adjustments. The broader question of whether the post-Brexit points-based system will treat Commonwealth citizens more favourably remains unresolved.
• 9th Biennial Conference 2020: planning accelerates toward June: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Jamaica Diaspora Institute accelerated their outreach and logistics planning through Q4 2019 for the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, scheduled for June 2020. The conference is being built around themes of economic partnership, with the diaspora’s role as a source of investment capital, professional expertise, and market linkages central to the programme. Attendance is expected to be in the thousands from North America, the UK, and the Caribbean.
• Windrush Compensation Scheme: justice deferred: The Windrush Compensation Scheme, which opened in April 2019, had paid out to very few claimants by year’s end, with community advocacy groups citing complex evidential requirements, inadequate caseworker support, and multi-month processing timelines as barriers disproportionately affecting older Caribbean claimants. The Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee continued to scrutinise the Home Office’s administration of the scheme.
• Trump immigration: year three of enforcement continues: The Trump administration maintained elevated ICE deportation volumes through Q4 2019, with regular deportation flights to Jamaica arriving at NMIA under PICA supervision. The Supreme Court’s agreement to hear DACA cases — arguments scheduled for early 2020 — kept the legal status of approximately 700,000 Dreamers uncertain heading into the new year. Jamaican-American community legal defence networks continued their Know Your Rights programming and emergency representation services.

Introduction: A Year of Records and Resilience

The fourth quarter of 2019 closes a year of considerable achievement for Jamaica and its diaspora. Tourism delivered the strongest performance in the sector’s history. Remittances reached a new record. Jamaica’s economic reform programme maintained IMF compliance while delivering consistent GDP growth and historically low unemployment. And diaspora engagement — through the momentum of the 8th Biennial Conference’s commitments and the approaching 9th Biennial in June 2020 — maintained an organisational intensity that augurs well for the year ahead. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 31 December 2019.

Remittances: A Record 2019

Jamaica’s full-year 2019 remittance performance reached approximately US$2.9 billion — the highest annual total in the country’s recorded remittance history and a figure representing approximately 16 per cent of GDP. The Q4 Christmas peak, which traditionally accounts for the year’s strongest quarterly remittance volume as diaspora members send accelerated support for school fees, household improvements, and Christmas celebrations, confirmed this trajectory. Bank of Jamaica data through November showed full-year flows decisively ahead of 2018, with December’s traditionally strong volumes extending the lead to a clear record.

Several structural drivers supported the 2019 record. Digital remittance platforms continued to expand their reach and reduce transfer costs: Western Union’s app-based services, MoneyGram’s digital products, and Caribbean-focused fintech operators grew their market share through the year, drawing previously informal transfers into the formal measurement system. The sustained health of US employment — with the national unemployment rate at multi-decade lows and wage growth solid in the service sectors where Jamaican-American workers are concentrated — supported both the volume and consistency of flows. The 2019 record establishes a high baseline for 2020 monitoring.

Tourism: Jamaica’s Best Year

Jamaica’s tourism sector closed 2019 with what appears to be a record year for stopover visitor arrivals, with the full-year total projected to exceed 2.6 million — a new high for an industry that contributes approximately a third of GDP directly and indirectly. The performance was driven by strong growth from the United States — Jamaica’s dominant source market — solid gains from Canada, and targeted growth in European markets through British Airways and Air Canada capacity additions. The cruise sector also maintained strong performance, with Port of Falmouth handling significant volumes through the year.

The tourism record has direct relevance for the returnee community. The sector’s growth is generating demand for professional talent — in hotel management, tourism product development, culinary arts, and hospitality administration — that returned Jamaicans with international experience are well positioned to supply. PICA’s Returning Residents facilitation team has been building more structured connections between incoming returnee professionals and tourism sector employers and investment opportunities, recognising the sector’s role as a natural landing zone for returnees with UK and North American service sector backgrounds.

Brexit: Johnson’s Victory and What Comes Next

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won an 80-seat parliamentary majority at the December 12, 2019 general election, ending the parliamentary paralysis that had produced three missed Brexit deadlines, two general elections, and a constitutional crisis of extraordinary duration. With this majority, Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement was ratified by Parliament in January, and the UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020 became a certainty. The transition period, during which the UK would continue to follow EU rules while negotiating the future relationship, was set to run until 31 December 2020.

For British-Jamaican community members, Brexit’s resolution required careful navigation. Those with settled status or the right of abode in the UK — the large majority of the established Jamaican-origin community — were not directly affected by the EU withdrawal element. However, British-Jamaican households with mixed EU and non-EU family compositions faced adjustments as free movement rights came to an end. And the broader immigration question — whether the post-Brexit points-based system, which Johnson’s government was positioning as the solution to “taking back control”, would treat Commonwealth citizens with greater generosity than the EU-era system — remained an open and significant question for the diaspora’s future trajectory.

9th Biennial Conference: Momentum Building

Planning for the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, scheduled for June 2020 in Jamaica, gathered pace through Q4 2019. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade and the Jamaica Diaspora Institute deepened their engagement with diaspora community organisations across North America, the UK, and the wider Caribbean, beginning the outreach and registration processes that would drive conference attendance. The conference’s thematic agenda, centred on economic partnership and diaspora investment, was being developed through consultation with diaspora advisory bodies and sectoral working groups.

The Biennial’s 18-year history — nine conferences since 2002 — has built a cumulative architecture of diaspora engagement that successive Jamaican governments have deepened and institutionalised. The 9th Biennial is expected to build on the commitments and relationships established at the 8th Biennial in June 2018, with particular attention to translating diaspora economic engagement from aspiration to measurable investment flows in key sectors including housing, agriculture, technology, and renewable energy.

Windrush: Compensation Scheme’s Slow Progress

The Windrush Compensation Scheme — announced in April 2018 and opened in April 2019 — had by year’s end paid out compensation to very few of the thousands of Windrush generation members and their families who were entitled to claim. Community advocacy organisations including the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Migrants Rights Network, and Jamaica’s High Commission in London were reporting that claimants were experiencing extreme difficulty navigating the Home Office’s complex evidential requirements without independent support, that processing times were running to many months, and that the overall pace of redress was wholly inadequate to the urgency of the situation.

The scheme’s slow progress was particularly acute for older claimants — those in their 70s and 80s who had experienced the most severe injustices of the scandal, including wrongful deportation, unlawful detention, and denial of NHS treatment — for whom the delay in receiving justice carried an irreversible human cost. The Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee continued to press the Home Office for improved administration, faster processing, and better support for claimants. Jamaica’s government maintained diplomatic engagement with the UK on the scheme’s pace.

Trump Immigration: Year Three

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement programme continued through Q4 2019 with no sign of moderation. ICE deportation flights to Jamaica maintained their elevated frequency, arriving at Norman Manley International Airport under PICA supervision and delivering deportees into the Jamaican reintegration system at a pace that placed continued demands on RISE Life Management Services and the broader returnee support infrastructure. PICA’s reception protocols, developed through years of managing deportee arrivals, continued to process arrivals efficiently while connecting the most vulnerable deportees with appropriate reintegration support.

The Supreme Court’s November 2019 decision to hear the DACA cases — with oral arguments scheduled for the first quarter of 2020 — kept the legal status of approximately 700,000 Dreamers in uncertainty as the new year began. For the Jamaican-American community, DACA’s fate was both a direct concern for DACA recipients and a broader symbol of the administration’s approach to immigration that shaped the political landscape in which community organisations operated. Jamaican-American community legal networks maintained their Know Your Rights programming and emergency legal representation services through the quarter.

Outlook for Q1 2020

The first quarter of 2020 opens with Jamaica’s economic momentum intact, its tourism sector at record levels, and its diaspora engagement architecture building toward the June Biennial. The primary external risks are the US-China trade tension’s effect on global growth, the post-Brexit transition’s implications for UK confidence, and the always-present hurricane season threat beginning in June. A novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019 is being monitored by international health authorities, but is not, as of this publication date, considered a significant threat to the diaspora source countries or to Jamaica. We look forward to reporting from 2 April 2020 on the quarter’s developments.

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 January 2020.

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