Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — July to September 2018

Published: 2 October 2018 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• 8th Biennial: three months of post-conference momentum: The 8th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, held in Montego Bay in June 2018, is three months into its post-conference implementation phase. The conference brought together over three thousand diaspora representatives from North America, the United Kingdom, and the wider Caribbean for three days of substantive engagement on economic partnership, investment facilitation, and diaspora governance. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade has established the working group and advisory committee structures through which conference commitments will be tracked and implemented across the 8th Biennial’s two-year cycle.
• Windrush scandal: UK government apology and compensation pledge: The Windrush scandal — which exploded into national prominence in spring 2018 as Caribbean community members who had lived in Britain for decades were denied the rights to which they were legally entitled, subjected to deportation threats, and stripped of access to NHS care and employment — produced a formal apology from Prime Minister Theresa May and a commitment to full compensation. Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned in April 2018 over her misleading statements to Parliament about deportation targets. The subsequent government commitment to a Windrush Compensation Scheme represented a partial but significant acknowledgment of the state’s responsibility for the harms inflicted.
• US Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban: The US Supreme Court’s June 26, 2018 decision in Trump v. Hawaii, upholding the administration’s travel ban on nationals of several predominantly Muslim countries by a 5-4 margin, marked a significant legal victory for the administration’s immigration restrictionism. For the broader immigrant community — including Jamaican-American organisations that had supported the legal challenges to the ban — the ruling reinforced the importance of the courts’ composition as a determinant of immigration policy outcomes.
• Family separation crisis: ended by order, legacy persists: The Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy — which produced the systematic separation of migrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border — was ended by executive order on 20 June 2018 following a wave of national and international outrage. As of Q3’s end, thousands of children remained separated from their parents, with court-ordered reunification timelines being missed by the administration. The episode produced lasting damage to the administration’s immigration moral authority across immigrant communities.
• Jamaica tourism: record summer season: Jamaica’s tourism sector delivered another strong quarterly performance through Q3 2018, with the peak summer season producing solid stopover visitor arrival numbers across the resort destinations. The sector’s sustained performance underpins the full-year 2018 trajectory toward another record and provides the economic foundation for returnee professional and investment opportunities in the hospitality and tourism adjacent sectors.
• Remittances: sustained growth mid-year: Jamaica’s remittance inflows through Q3 2018 maintained their positive year-on-year growth trajectory, with BOJ data confirming continued gains from the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. The sustained health of US employment and the expansion of digital transfer channels continued to support strong formal remittance flows, with the full-year 2018 total tracking toward approximately US$2.8 billion.

Introduction: A Quarter Shaped by Justice and Its Absence

The third quarter of 2018 was defined, for Jamaica’s global diaspora, by two contrasting experiences of justice: the partial but significant acknowledgment of the Windrush injustice in the United Kingdom, with a formal governmental apology and compensation commitment; and the continuation, in the United States, of immigration enforcement policies whose human cost for immigrant communities — culminating in the family separation crisis — was generating global condemnation. Both developments are filtered through the experience of the 8th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, held in Montego Bay in June 2018, whose post-conference implementation is the strategic framework through which Jamaica’s government is seeking to convert diaspora engagement into economic and social development outcomes. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 30 September 2018.

8th Biennial: Building the Post-Conference Architecture

The 8th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference of June 2018 brought together more than three thousand diaspora representatives at the Montego Bay Convention Centre for three days of substantive engagement that spanned economic development, investment facilitation, healthcare, education, cultural industries, and diaspora governance. The conference’s opening by Prime Minister Andrew Holness — who delivered a keynote address emphasising the diaspora’s centrality to Jamaica’s economic development strategy — set the tone for a gathering that combined the relational investment of in-person community reunion with the substantive work of sectoral working groups and structured diaspora-government dialogue.

Three months into the post-conference implementation phase, the MFAFT’s diaspora affairs directorate has established the advisory committee structures and tracking mechanisms through which the conference’s commitments will be monitored. The conference’s economic partnership theme — centred on creating practical pathways for diaspora investment in Jamaica’s housing, agriculture, technology, and tourism sectors — is the strategic priority, with the Jamaica Diaspora Institute coordinating the research and facilitation work that will translate conference aspirations into investment frameworks. Jamaica Homes’ engagement with the housing sector working group’s recommendations is focused on diaspora property acquisition pathways that bridge the information, legal, and financial gaps that have historically limited diaspora investment in Jamaican real estate.

The Windrush Scandal: A Partial Reckoning

The Windrush scandal had, by spring 2018, exposed the systematic harm inflicted on Windrush generation members and their families by the Home Office’s hostile environment immigration policies. British citizens of Caribbean origin — who had arrived in the United Kingdom as children between 1948 and 1973 under the British Nationality Act 1948’s right of abode, and who had built their entire adult lives in Britain — were being told by the Home Office that they had no right to be in the country. They were denied healthcare, lost employment, were subjected to detention, and in some cases were wrongfully deported to countries they had not lived in for decades.

The scandal reached its political apex in April 2018, when Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigned after admitting she had misled Parliament about the existence of targets for removing illegal immigrants — targets whose enforcement had been a driver of the wrongful treatment of Windrush generation members. Prime Minister Theresa May — who had, as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016, been the architect of the hostile environment policy framework — issued a formal apology to affected Caribbean community members and committed to full compensation. Sajid Javid’s appointment as Home Secretary was widely read as a recognition of the political need for a non-white face at the department responsible for the scandal.

Through Q3 2018, the government’s work on the Windrush Compensation Scheme’s design continued, with Caribbean community organisations pressing for a scheme that would be genuinely accessible to the often elderly and administratively unsupported Windrush generation claimants. Jamaica’s High Commission in London maintained close engagement with both the UK government and the affected community, and Jamaica’s government continued to press diplomatically for the scheme’s rapid development and generous implementation.

Trump Travel Ban Upheld; Family Separation Ended

The US Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Trump v. Hawaii on 26 June 2018, upholding the Trump administration’s Proclamation 9645 restricting travel from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, was a landmark legal defeat for the coalition of civil liberties organisations, state governments, and immigration advocates that had challenged the ban through the courts. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Roberts, found that the proclamation was a lawful exercise of the President’s broad authority over immigration and national security.

Jamaica is not among the countries targeted by the travel ban, and its direct impact on Jamaican nationals seeking US entry is limited. However, the ruling’s broader significance — as an affirmation of the executive’s near-plenary authority over immigration decisions — was watched closely by Jamaican-American immigration advocates as a signal of the legal landscape in which future challenges to enforcement policies would operate. The ruling was decided by the same 5-4 conservative majority that would hear any future Supreme Court challenges to Trump-era deportation policies.

The Trump administration’s zero tolerance border policy — implemented through Attorney General Sessions’s May 7, 2018 directive and producing systematic family separation at the US-Mexico border as a deterrent mechanism — was ended by Trump’s executive order on 20 June. A federal judge subsequently ordered the government to reunify all separated families within 30 days. As Q3 ended, thousands of families remained separated, the government was missing court-ordered reunification deadlines, and the political and humanitarian damage of the policy was still reverberating through immigrant communities and the US body politic.

Jamaica Economy and Tourism

Jamaica’s domestic economy continued its steady positive trajectory through Q3 2018. The summer tourist season — critical for the resort destinations of Montego Bay, Negril, and Ocho Rios — delivered strong performance, and the sector’s overall 2018 trajectory pointed toward another record annual total for stopover visitor arrivals. The intersection of Jamaica’s strong tourism performance and the returnee community’s sustained interest in the island’s improving quality of life continued to drive PICA’s Returning Residents facilitation pipeline and Jamaica Homes’ diaspora property enquiries through the quarter.

Outlook for Q4 2018

The fourth quarter of 2018 will bring the November 6 US midterm elections — a significant moment for Jamaican-American civic participation and a potential turning point in the political landscape for immigration policy. The Windrush Compensation Scheme’s design will continue to be developed, with its opening expected in early 2019. Jamaica’s Christmas remittance peak will build toward the year-end total. And the 8th Biennial’s post-conference implementation will continue its work of converting conference commitments into measurable outcomes. We report next from 2 January 2019.

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 2018.

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