Caribbean nations struggle to absorb U.S. deportees

Bert Wilkinson

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — U.S. and Caribbean lawmakers have renewed efforts to address problems surrounding the ad hoc deportation of Caribbean nationals from the United States.

The Western Hemisphere subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held special hearings last month on the deportation question. Chaired by New York Democrat Eliot L. Engel, the hearings followed a late June summit on Capitol Hill between Caribbean leaders and President Bush.

The leaders are pleading with the Bush administration to devise a better way to deal with the deportation of Caribbean citizens.

“We want to know when they are coming, who they are and [we] would like them to have access to financial and other resources before they are sent back destitute,” said Caribbean trade bloc spokesman Leonard Robertson. “Our governments have been asking for this for years.”

The case of one Jamaican convict illustrates the problems that plague the deportation system. In 1999, the man was deported to Guyana from Texas after assuming the identity of a Guyanese mechanic who had lost his residency card on the streets in New York months earlier.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service had exerted so much pressure on the Guyanese embassy that it finally issued James Dean Collins — who claimed to be Edgar Garfield Gibbons of Guyana — with travel papers that left him stranded in police detention for more than a year before his true identity was confirmed and marshals escorted him back to a U.S. jail.

To support their call for changes in U.S. deportation procedures, Caribbean leaders pointed to a study by Jamaican academic Annmarie Barnes showing that three of the 15 Caribbean Community (Caricom) nations — Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana — absorbed 30,000 deportees between 1990 and 2005.

The presence of returned killers, drug dealers, armed robbers and rapists, among others, has contributed significantly to rising crime in the Caribbean, authorities say, forcing some governments to hire British law enforcement experts to help beat back the scourge.

Of the 30,000, 17,000 have been convicted for drug trafficking, 600 for murder and 1,800 for illegal gun possession.

“The United States is responsible for more than 75 percent of all criminal deportations to the region,” according to Barnes’ study.

However, not all deportees have committed violent or even serious crimes.

The committee also heard testimony from rights groups and legislators such as Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who was a special guest at the early July summit of Caribbean leaders in Barbados.

Calling on the U.S. to “have a heart,” Alison Parker of the nongovernmental group Human Rights Watch characterized the U.S. policy of deporting aliens after serving time for felonies and even misdemeanors as “far out of step” with international standards.

“Human rights law recognizes that the privilege of living in any country as a noncitizen may be conditional upon obeying that country’s laws. However, a country like the United States cannot withdraw that privilege without protecting the human rights of the immigrants it previously allowed to enter,” she said.

Parker wants Congress to reinstate rules allowing judges discretion in cases where crimes are minor and family connections strong.

“Families have been torn apart because of a single, even minor, misstep such as shoplifting or drug possession,” she said.

Representatives from all sides say the hearings, the summit and other meetings with U.S. officials indicate that strides have been made in recent months to tackle what leaders say is one of the most vexing policy issues with the U.S.

Officials are considering replicating a deportee pilot program now in place in Haiti, in which returnees are given financial assistance with resettlement and helped to start micro-enterprises rather than falling under the sway of drug traffickers and other criminal gangs.

“They are looking to see if that can be applied in the region,” trade bloc spokesman Robertson said.

In calculating the proportionate effect of deportation, Barnes reasoned that with a combined population of less than 5 million people in Guyana, Trinidad and Jamaica, the impact of “this relocation of criminal offenders would be roughly equivalent to the influx, into the United States, of more than 1 million convicted drug offenders and close to 40,000 convicted murderers.”

Trinidad Cabinet Minister Conrad Enill said better communication with U.S. authorities is the key to a successful program.

“What we ask is, if you’re sending them back, we need to know beforehand so we could track them and know where they are,” Enill said. “If deportees are coming, we need to be able to welcome them properly.”

Jamaican government spokesman Carlton Davis said there is little doubt deportees contribute to serious crime.

“When they come they are free, and a study shows that there is a strong correlation between deportation and violent crime,” Davis said. “We need serious discussion as to the systems that enable us to manage this inflow of people who, I am told, have no family. They probably become technical advisers [to other criminals].

“I am not saying that they are the cause of our problems, but it is a factor.”

Jamaica absorbed 530 convicted murderers in 2005 alone, an influx that officials say is too large for any small country to bear.

(IPS/GIN)