America and the complex issue of immigration

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The big issue that seems to be preoccupying the minds of Jamaicans living in the United States is the uncertainty concerning immigration in the light of threats by President-elect Donald Trump to carry out mass deportations of undocumented individuals.

Since the November 5 presidential elections, social media platforms have been awash with various versions of claims regarding the new Administration’s plans to upend the current immigration status. For example, one claim is that birthright citizenship will end, meaning that children born in the US to foreigners could lose their automatic right to citizenship. This would be aimed at ending the long-standing practice of women going to the US to have their babies in order to acquire citizenship for them.

Another claim is that chain migration, the means by which most Jamaicans migrate to the US, will be ended.

Immigration, centred especially on the chaos at the southern border, was undoubtedly one of the main issues for American voters. In the heat of political battle, immigrant became a curse word and immigrants were sorely vilified.

Regrettably, the mostly positive benefits of emigration were lost in the contretemps. Host countries job vacancies and skills gaps can be filled. Economic growth can be sustained. Services to an ageing population can be maintained when there are insufficient young people locally. The pension gap can be filled by the contributions of new young workers and they also pay taxes.

Whatever policy the Trump Administration eventually implements, one thing has to be clear: Every country has the right to protect its own borders. Unbridled immigration is a danger to the entire population.

That is one of the reasons Jamaica has to handle with care the arrival of Haitians fleeing the absolute wickedness that is being wrought by gangs in that unfortunate French-speaking country. It is not about being hard-hearted.

In the US, which is the destination for most migrants leaving their own homes for a variety of reasons, the number of unauthorised immigrants has tripled between 1990 and 2007, from 3.5 million to a record high of 12.2 million, according to the Pew Research Center. From there, the number slowly declined to about 10.2 million in 2019.

Pew said that in 2022 the number of unauthorised immigrants in the US showed sustained growth for the first time since 2007, to 11 million, with about four million being of Mexican birth, or the largest number of any origin country. Other data sources suggest continued growth in 2023 and 2024.

The US has been unable to develop a sustained immigration programme that would achieve a workable balance between legal immigrants arriving in the country and the US benefiting from renewal of the labour pool. This is probably because of differences between the two main parties, the Republicans and the Democrats.

It is an understatement to say that the sooner the US can arrive at a solution to this problem, the better it will be for the world. America is home to one-fifth of the world’s international migrants. These immigrants come from just about every country on the globe.

Jamaicans makes up a relatively small portion of the overall immigrant population of the US. They, like most, work hard to make a decent living and support families. We have a vested interest in a lasting solution.

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America and the complex issue of immigration

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