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The Ongoing Saga of Deportees

Posted by CaribShout on October 14, 2009 at 12:01am
In July, 2009, the CaribWorldNews published some detai­led data on criminals who have been depor­ted from the United States of America to the Caribbean. Since 1996, changes in American immi­gra­tion laws have pro­­vi­ded the Immigration and Customs Enfor­cement (ICE) to summarily deport convicted resident aliens providing they were convicted of a prison sentence for one year or more. The law is extremely elastic and ICE has used this elasticity to increase the ranks of criminal deportees. CaribWorldNews estimates that over 50,000 Caribbean criminals have been deported over the last decade. The Dominican Republic has absorbed over 22,000 deportees in that ten year span. Jamaican society had the task of absorbing over 14,000 criminals. Haitian society was forced to absorb 3,955 of their convicted nationals. In Trinidad and Tobago, that number over the ten year span amounted to 2,589 criminal deportees. America has not been alone in the mad rush to deport criminals to their host countries. The United Kingdom has been just as aggressive and the government of Canada has also acted in concert. The Canadian numbers are miniscule in comparison to the United States and the United Kingdom. In the case of Jamaica, 2003 and 2004, deportees from the United Kingdom exceeded those from the United States. The export of a segment of the Caribbean labour force has been vital to the preservation of social order in the region. It has already been established by international agencies that Caribbean nationals living abroad play a critical role in the economic developmental process as remittances provide badly needed foreign exchange and puts ready spending power in the hands of the indigenous population. There is an ongoing debate as to whether criminal deportees are a causative factor in the increase in crime rates in the region and whether this kind of resource dumping of human beings by a developed society to a developing society is moral. A recent study by the World Bank placed the Caribbean region at the top of the pile vis-à-vis violent crime. The violent crime rate in the Caribbean was 30 to 100,000. In Southern Africa, it was 29 to 100,000. In the United States where violent crime has plummeted since the 1990s, it is 7 per 100,000. In the Middle East, a region that one associates with religious fundamentalism and terrorism, the violent crime rate among the civilian population is extremely low. Even though the violent crime rate is relatively low in the United States, in inner city communities, particularly among black youth, it is comparatively high. Violent crime among black youths has decreased since the 1990s when it was as high as 65 per 100,000. That astronomical figure has come down to 32 per 100,000, an improvement but still staggeringly high. That high rate accounts for the death of the high school student who was accidentally shot at the corner of Springfield Boulevard and Linden Boulevard in Queens on Friday, October 2, 2009. That level of violence would also account for the student in Chicago who was recently beaten to death. There is obviously something rotten in the state of inner city communities. That problem of black on black violence in America which is not exportable needs the attention of policymakers on the state and national level. The study by the Jamaican criminologist, Bernard Headley, that was commissioned by the American Embassy in Jamaica concluded that deportees were not the cause of the rising crime rate in Jamaica. In the 1960s, with the export of migrants to the United Kingdom, there was a shift in the export of surplus workers from the United Kingdom to the United States. Included in that mix of productive immigrants were members of the army of lumpen-proletariat, many of whom fought in the political battles in Western Kingston during the 1967 election. Deportees who return at the middle age mark are less likely to return to a life of crime. Deportees who were steppers in the urban enclaves of American society and are at the age below middle age are more likely to join gangs when they return home and to move into leadership positions. Even though there has been no rigorous empirical study, there is much experiential data as to how returning deportees have had a destabilizing impact on intra-community violence in Rema, in Concrete Jungle, et al. What breeds crime is the incapacity of a society to provide wholesome activities for young people in search of legitimate enterprise. That crippling incapacity leads to the attractiveness of illegitimate enterprise and allows for a sub-culture of violence to take hold. Once that sub-culture of illegitimate enterprise and violence are institutionalized, it is a tall order to correct the malady. Deportees dumped on that kind of fragile social order will invariably exacerbate the situation. The recent G-20 summit in Pittsburg recognized the need for developed countries to provide resources for developing countries affected by the contracting world economy. Obama has been in the forefront of this new global dispensation and international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF are expected to play constructive roles in a kinder, gentler form of globalization. America has always seen the circum-Caribbean as vital to America’s national security interest and thus America has a vested interest in contributing to the economic viability of the region. The dumping of criminal deportees in the region is a destabilizing policy. The United States has the resource capabilities to vigorously tackle the high level of criminal violence within certain sub-sectors of American society and concomitantly provide the Caribbean region with sorely needed aid to reduce the level of violence in those societies. America through benign neglect has allowed black on black violence to take on a life of its own. These communities have been devastated by the loss of the manufacturing base and the rise of gangs and the embrace of illicit drug markets. Even in prosperous economic times, unemployment in black communities is excessively high and requires an intervention strategy to further reduce the rate of violent crime. In the Caribbean region, governments are not terribly enterprising in expanding legitimate enterprise or in slowing the rate of illegitimate enterprise. A comprehensive anticrime strategy would have greater effectiveness if the United States contributed to assist in the smashing of organized crime and to promote peace. That is a difficult policy to sell the United States government at this historical juncture when unemployment is 9.8 percent of the workforce. But as America returns to a state of economic prosperity, the rethinking of its deportee policy would be appropriate.
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