Published: 2 April 2017 | Jamaica Homes News
Key Takeaways
- Trump inaugurated and travel ban signed: diaspora communities in shock: Donald Trump’s inauguration as 45th President of the United States on 20 January 2017 was followed six days later by Executive Order 13769 — the travel ban restricting nationals of seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the US — which produced scenes of chaos at airports across America as travellers in transit were detained or turned back, immigration lawyers mobilised at airports in unprecedented numbers, and federal judges issued emergency stays. The rapid, disorganised implementation of the ban — which initially appeared to cover lawful permanent residents as well as visa holders — signalled an administration approach to immigration that would define the political environment for all diaspora communities through the first term.
- Interior enforcement expansion: the new enforcement reality: Trump’s January 25, 2017 executive order on interior enforcement — signed before the travel ban — was in some ways more consequential for the established Jamaican-American community, as it eliminated the enforcement priorities and prosecutorial discretion protections that had largely shielded long-term residents with US-citizen family members from deportation under the Obama administration. The order’s practical implementation — including enhanced 287(g) law enforcement partnerships, expansion of the Secure Communities programme, and the deployment of additional ICE personnel — began to produce visible enforcement actions in Caribbean communities within weeks of inauguration.
- UK triggers Article 50: Brexit formally begins: Prime Minister Theresa May’s triggering of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March 2017 — formally notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to withdraw and beginning the two-year negotiation period — set in motion the most significant constitutional and economic transformation of the United Kingdom since the Second World War. For British-Jamaican community members, Article 50’s triggering crystallised the Brexit referendum’s result into a formal legal process whose immigration policy outcomes — for EU citizens in the UK, for UK citizens in the EU, and for the future framework governing non-EU Commonwealth citizens — would take years to work through.
- Jamaican-American community: mobilisation in Trump’s first hundred days: The Trump administration’s rapid immigration policy actions in its first weeks produced an equally rapid mobilisation of Jamaican-American community organisations and legal advocacy groups. Know Your Rights sessions, emergency legal hotlines, community information campaigns about the distinction between federal and local enforcement, and guidance on sanctuary jurisdiction protections were among the responses deployed through Q1 2017. The community’s organisational response demonstrated the advocacy infrastructure built over decades of Caribbean-American civic engagement.
- 7th Biennial: nine months of follow-through: Nine months on from the 7th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference of June 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade’s post-conference implementation continued to advance the working group commitments through the advisory committee structures established at the conference. The intensifying political environment in the United States and the United Kingdom — producing both heightened diaspora anxiety and intensified interest in the Jamaican connection as an anchor of identity and belonging — gave the 7th Biennial’s community engagement commitments added urgency.
- Jamaica economy and remittances: positive start to 2017: Jamaica’s domestic economy maintained its positive trajectory through Q1 2017, with the IMF economic reform programme’s outcomes of declining unemployment and controlled inflation providing an improving context for returnee interest and diaspora investment. Preliminary BOJ data for Q1 2017 confirmed continued year-on-year remittance growth, with the US source market’s sustained employment health supporting positive flows despite the Trump era’s uncertainty.
Introduction: A New Era Begins
The first quarter of 2017 inaugurated a new era in American politics whose implications for Jamaica’s diaspora communities became apparent within days of the new administration’s taking office. The velocity and scope of Trump’s immigration executive orders in his first week — interior enforcement expansion on January 25, the travel ban on January 27 — signalled an approach to immigration that would reshape the operating environment for Jamaican-American communities in fundamental ways. This is the most significant political transition for the Jamaican diaspora’s major host country since the post-civil-rights era, and its consequences — already visible in the first months — will shape diaspora life for years. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 31 March 2017.
Trump’s Inauguration and the Travel Ban
Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January 2017 was followed by the most rapid sequence of consequential immigration executive actions in the history of the American presidency. The January 25 interior enforcement executive order — signed in the administration’s fifth day — began dismantling the enforcement priority framework that had provided de facto protection to millions of long-term undocumented residents. The January 27 travel ban — signed the same day as Trump’s meeting with UK Prime Minister Theresa May, who became the first foreign leader to visit the new administration — produced immediate airport chaos as travellers from the seven targeted countries were detained, turned around, or refused boarding.
The travel ban’s implementation was marked by the administrative disorder that would characterise much of the Trump administration’s early policy execution: initial guidance suggested that lawful permanent residents — green card holders — were covered, then the White House clarified they were not, then local CBP officers applied the ban inconsistently across airports. Lawyers who responded to the airport chaos by rushing to provide pro bono representation obtained emergency stays from federal judges within hours, and within days the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the nationwide stay against the order. The administration began working on a revised order while appealing the stay.
Jamaica is not among the seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen — targeted by the original travel ban, and Jamaican nationals’ visa access to the United States is not directly affected. However, the ban’s broader significance — as the most dramatic unilateral immigration restriction in the modern era, and as a signal of the administration’s willingness to act decisively on its immigration restrictionist commitments — resonated powerfully across all immigrant communities, including the Jamaican-American community, as a harbinger of the enforcement environment that would follow.
Interior Enforcement: The New Reality
For the established Jamaican-American community, whose members are primarily lawful residents or citizens rather than the undocumented border crossers targeted by the travel ban’s most vivid imagery, the more immediately consequential action was the January 25 interior enforcement executive order. By eliminating the Obama administration’s enforcement priorities — which had essentially limited deportation actions to recent border crossers, serious criminals, and national security threats — the order created a new legal vulnerability for the substantial population of Jamaican nationals who were living and working in the United States without authorisation but with deep community roots, US-citizen children, and decades of law-abiding residence.
The enforcement order’s implementation began quickly. ICE enforcement operations in the weeks following the inauguration produced arrests in New York, South Florida, and other cities with large Caribbean communities that included long-term residents who would not have been priorities under the previous administration’s framework. The Caribbean community’s response was immediate: Know Your Rights training sessions with hundreds of attendees, emergency legal clinic provision, door-to-door community information campaigns about the distinction between federal and local enforcement obligations, and guidance on the rights of US-citizen children whose parents faced removal proceedings.
UK: Article 50 Triggered
Prime Minister Theresa May’s delivery of the Article 50 notification to the European Council President Donald Tusk on 29 March 2017 — a letter that formally triggered the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union and began the two-year negotiation countdown — was a historic constitutional act whose consequences for British-Jamaican community members will take years to fully materialise. The letter committed the UK to leaving the EU’s single market and customs union as well as its political institutions, and to negotiating a comprehensive new relationship with the EU covering trade, security, and citizens’ rights.
For British-Jamaican communities, the Article 50 triggering produced a new phase of practical planning questions. Those with EU-citizen family members were accelerating applications for settled status and residency documentation. Those considering return migration to Jamaica were weighing whether Brexit’s economic consequences — whatever they proved to be — might accelerate their return timelines. And those with professional qualifications gained in EU member states were examining whether their credentials would retain their value in a post-Brexit UK. Caribbean community advocacy organisations maintained their monitoring of the Brexit negotiations’ progress and pressed for the early certainty about EU citizen rights that the community needed to plan with confidence.
Community Mobilisation: The Caribbean Advocacy Response
The Jamaican-American community’s organisational response to the Trump administration’s first weeks was remarkable in its speed and sophistication. Community organisations that had spent years building legal education infrastructure, voter registration capacity, and legislative advocacy relationships were able to deploy these assets immediately. The Caribbean community in New York, with its deep networks through Caribbean American Action, the Jamaica Diaspora Organisation, and allied advocacy groups, led the response but was mirrored by community mobilisation in South Florida, Atlanta, and other diaspora centres.
The mobilisation’s focus was both immediate — protecting community members facing acute enforcement risk — and strategic — building the long-term civic engagement and political representation capacity that would be the community’s most durable protection against an hostile administration. Voter registration drives, targeting Jamaican-American permanent residents who were eligible for naturalisation but had not yet applied, took on new urgency as the community recognised that US citizenship was the most complete legal protection available in the new enforcement environment.
Jamaica and the Diaspora: Steady Amid the Storm
Jamaica’s domestic economy maintained its positive trajectory through Q1 2017, with the IMF economic reform programme continuing to deliver declining unemployment, controlled inflation, and modest GDP growth under Prime Minister Holness’s JLP government. The tourism sector’s strong winter season performance built on the record-approaching results of 2016. PICA’s Returning Residents facilitation service continued to process steady inquiry volumes from British-Jamaican and Jamaican-American prospective returnees, and the paradox familiar from previous periods of US political instability — that diaspora community members under pressure in their countries of residence often intensify their engagement with the Jamaican connection — was visible in increased diaspora interest in property, investment, and return planning.
Outlook for Q2 2017
The second quarter of 2017 will see the travel ban litigation reach the Supreme Court, the continuation of interior enforcement operations in Caribbean communities, the first anniversary of the 7th Biennial, and the UK’s Brexit negotiations formally opening. Jamaica’s tourism sector will enter its shoulder season, and the diaspora’s summer visit planning will begin. The Trump administration’s full immigration policy programme — including proposals on legal immigration reduction and border wall construction — will continue to take shape. We report next from 2 July 2017.
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 April 2017.
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