From Immigration to De-Integration to Re-Integration in the Caribbean: Exploring the Deportee Phenomenon

• Author: Clifford E. Griffin
• Pages: 192-212

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FREEDOM AND CONSTRAINT IN CARIBBEAN MIGRATION AND DIASPORA

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A series of anti-crime and anti-terrorism bills passed by the US Congress

during the early 1990s has led to the biggest dragnet in US history.

Between 1995 and 2004, some 61,851 nationals of 20 Caribbean territories

were deported from the US, 67.5 per cent for committing various criminal

offences (See Table 1). During this same period, crime statistics compiled by

Caribbean police departments reveal a monotonic increase in all cases, and a

significant increase in many cases, in the reported incidence of most categories

of crime. Also throughout this period, the region witnessed a proliferation of

private security services and personnel; significant investments in guard dogs;

the installation of expensive, high tech security apparatuses, and the burglar

proofing of homes, businesses and motor vehicles - developments having taken

place in direct response to a perceived sense of insecurity posed by criminals.

Government leaders, journalists, commentators and political pundits alike

across the region have responded to these developments by asserting more

than a correlation between the influx of deportees and rising crime. Many

assert a direct causation by pointing to ‘sophisticated’ crimes, ranging

from carjackings in Guyana, to gun slayings in the Dominican Republic,

to kidnappings in Haiti, to bank robberies in Barbados. These assertions

inform the general view that the USA (and other developed countries)

should not be ‘dumping’ these individuals on Caribbean societies.

FROM IMMIGRATION to de-INTEGRATION

to re-integration in the caribbean:

Exploding the Deportee Phenomenon

CLIFFORD E. GRIFFIN

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FROM I MMIGRATION TO DE-INTEGRATION TO RE-INTEGRATION IN THE C ARIBBEAN

Source: Statistical Yearbooks of the INS

This view contends that: deportees are implementing their criminal

skills honed in major metropolitan cities of the USA and other developed

countries in these far less sophisticated societies, thereby contributing to

an increasing sense of insecurity; Caribbean countries do not have the

capacity to handle this influx of criminal deportees; many deportees suffer

from serious problems like drug addiction, HIV and AIDS, other

Table 12.1: US Deportees to the Caribbean 1995-2004

Country

Total

US

Deportees

US

Deportees

per

100,000

Total

US

Criminal

Deportees

US

Criminal

Deportees

per

100,000

Anguilla 8 62 0 0

Antigua and Barbuda 331 487 270 397

Bahamas 1,039 346 348 116

Barbados 527 188 389 140

Belize 1,535 569 1,047 385

Bermuda 93 143 52 80

British Virgin Islands 37 168 12 55

Cayman Islands 4 9 4 9

Cuba 675 6 577 5

Dominica 256 371 162 235

Dominican Republic 29,699 345 19,759 230

Grenada 222 249 159 179

Haiti 5,355 71 3,109

Jamaica 18,252 676 13,050 483

Montserrat 25 278 10 111

St. Kitts and Nevis 204 523 115 294

St. Lucia 255 159 158 99

St. Vincent &

Grenadines 227 189 148 123

Trinidad and Tobago 3,079 283 1,904 175

Turks and Caicos 30 158 13 68

Totals 61,851 5,280 41,773 3,225