Go Lean Commentary
In 2016, many Caribbean people – i.e. Jamaicans – wanted the Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton, to win the Presidency, hoping for a More Liberal Immigration policy.
That didn’t happen!
The Republican Party’s candidate, Donald Trump, won and he brought in an agenda of Anti-Immigration, both legal and illegal scenarios.
Perhaps, that selfish Caribbean expectation was wrong in other ways too. See an excerpt here from a previous Go Lean commentary:
Courting Caribbean Votes – ‘Jamericans’ – October 9, 2016
The term [‘Jamerican’] is defined as the Jamaican – American sub-culture that now thrives in many American urban communities; think Brooklyn’s Flatbush in New York City, or Kingston Hill in the Broward County (Florida) community of Lauderhill. These communities feature a thriving Jamaican Diaspora with empowered business leaders, elected politicians and cultural expressions. [A] previous blog … concluded with the analogy of a “genie leaving a bottle”, that there is no returning. Now we see the ‘Jamericans’ doubling-down on this legacy, even trying to influence US federal elections for more liberal immigration policies – to bring in more Jamaicans and grow the Jamerican population even more.
Most of the Jamaican Diaspora in the US – 61 percent – are American citizens; their tactic has always been to “naturalize” as soon as possible so that they can sponsor other family members. The number of the Jamaican Diaspora was estimated at 706,000 – an amazing statistic considering that the population in the Jamaican homeland is just 2.8 million (in 2010).
So many members of the Caribbean Diaspora living in the US are eligible to vote on November 8, 2016.
- Who will they vote for? Who should they vote for?
- What if the criterion for the vote is benevolence to Caribbean causes?
Hands-down, without a doubt, the Jamerican population – and other Caribbean groups (587K Haitians, 879K Dominicans & 500K Other*) – lean towards the Democratic Party – “they are with her: Hillary Clinton”. In fact, as prominent Jamerican personalities emerged in support of the opposing candidate, Donald Trump, they have received scorn and ridicule.
Donald Trump won in 2016 …
So many ‘Jamericans’, Jamaicans and Caribbean people in general had to endure 4 years of Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
Now for 2020, what will it be: “More Immigration or Less” by the 2 competing candidates vying for the presidential race?
From the beginning of his presidential political career, Donald Trump named, blamed and shamed America’s past federal administrations for their liberal immigration policies. He pulled the “welcome mat” to both legal and illegal immigrants. Just consider the experiences of those persons with H-1B Visas; as related in this VIDEO here:
VIDEO – Trump expanding immigration restrictions, suspending H-1B and other visas – https://youtu.be/8uOOkDEfjqg
CBS News
Posted June 22, 2020 – The Trump administration on Monday announced it will suspend certain visas that allow foreigners to move to the U.S. temporarily to work, saying the broad restrictions will ease the economic impact of the coronavirus. CBS News’ Skyler Henry joins CBSN’s Elaine Quijano with the latest.
Trump is on record as wanting to double-down on his current immigration policy – Less Liberal – for his second term. Remember his “Build The Wall” chant!
How about the other candidate: Joe Biden? What is his intent and vision on immigration? See here from his own campaign website:
Title: THE Biden Plan for Securing Our Values as a Nation of Immigrants
It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely. When our government argues in court against giving those children toothbrushes and soap. When President Trump uses family separation as a weapon against desperate mothers, fathers, and children seeking safety and a better life. When he threatens massive raids that would break up families who have been in this country for years and targets people at sensitive locations like hospitals and schools. When children die while in custody due to lack of adequate care.Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants.
It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.
Unless your ancestors were native to these shores, or forcibly enslaved and brought here as part of our original sin as a nation, most Americans can trace their family history back to a choice – a choice to leave behind everything that was familiar in search of new opportunities and a new life. Joe Biden understands that is an irrefutable source of our strength. Generations of immigrants have come to this country with little more than the clothes on their backs, the hope in their heart, and a desire to claim their own piece of the American Dream. It’s the reason we have constantly been able to renew ourselves, to grow better and stronger as a nation, and to meet new challenges. Immigration is essential to who we are as a nation, our core values, and our aspirations for our future. Under a Biden Administration, we will never turn our backs on who we are or that which makes us uniquely and proudly American. The United States deserves an immigration policy that reflects our highest values as a nation.
Today, our immigration system is under greater stress as a direct result of Trump’s misguided policies, even as he has failed to invest in smarter border technology that would improve our cargo screening.
His obsession with building a wall does nothing to address security challenges while costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Most contraband comes in through our legal ports of entry. It’s estimated that nearly half of the undocumented people living in the U.S. today have overstayed a visa, not crossed a border illegally. Families fleeing the violence in Central America are voluntarily presenting themselves to border patrol officials. And the real threats to our security–drug cartels and human traffickers–can more easily evade enforcement efforts because Trump has misallocated resources into bullying legitimate asylum seekers. Trump fundamentally misunderstands how to keep America safe because he cares more about governing through fear and division than common sense solutions.
Trump’s policies are also bad for our economy. For generations, immigrants have fortified our most valuable competitive advantage – our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Research suggests that “the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers is roughly $2 trillion.” Key sectors of the U.S. economy, from agriculture to technology, rely on immigration. Working-age immigrants keep our economy growing, our communities thriving, and country moving forward.
The challenges we face will not be solved by a constitutionally dubious “national emergency” to build a wall, by separating families, or by denying asylum to people fleeing persecution and violence. Addressing the Trump-created humanitarian crisis at our border, bringing our nation together, reasserting our core values, and reforming our immigration system will require real leadership and real solutions. Biden is prepared on day one to deliver both.
As president, Biden will forcefully pursue policies that safeguard our security, provide a fair and just system that helps to grow and enhance our economy, and secure our cherished values. He will:
- Take urgent action to undo Trump’s damage and reclaim America’s values
- Modernize America’s immigration system
- Welcome immigrants in our communities
- Reassert America’s commitment to asylum-seekers and refugees
- Tackle the root causes of irregular migration
- Implement effective border screening
Source: Retrieved October 28, 2020 from: https://joebiden.com/immigration/#
So Joe Biden proposes a More Liberal Immigration policy. But still, choosing the immigration policy of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not a discussion of “what is best for the Caribbean?” The answer is neither!
The choice of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is one of the “lesser of the evils”.
Why? When people abandon their homeland and emigrate to another country, “some prospects” may get better for them, but most assuredly, things worsen for the homeland they leave behind – there will be no return on the historic investments into these now-departed people.
Alas, the “some better prospects” maybe more elusive as well. The movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean has consistently portrayed how the “grass is not necessarily greener on the other side”. Consider the excerpts from these 2 recent blog-commentaries (in reverse chronological order):
European Reckoning – Settlers -vs- Immigrants – January 19, 2019
… We can get close but never quite catch up. One realizes that this is the same with immigrating to the United States. Despite being a Nation of Immigrants (NOI), new ones can never catch up with the Settlers. Consider the historicity of this distinction in the Appendix article below; composed by a “conservative” lawyer and published by the American Conservative Organization. (Conservatives are in contrast to liberals; while all conservatives are not racists, all racists are conservatives).
Yes, under the law (de jure), there is no difference between a First Generation American citizen and a Third Generation (or more) American citizen, but in reality (de facto) American society never really considers “you” as an Immigrant to be a full American.
Listen up you Black-and-Brown people of the Caribbean, yearning to emigrate to the US. You will never be a settler. Accepting this reality may dampen the “Welcome Sign” to those who aspire for an American life.
———–
Stay Home! Immigration Realities in the US – March 2, 2017
When conditions are dysfunctional at home, people leave … period. …
This is not good for a family nor for a community. The truth of the matter is that communities need their populations to grow, not recede. So any human flight incidences would create havoc on the functionality of societal engines: economics, security and governance.
This is our status in the Caribbean, but it is not just an incident, not a trickle; it is a flood. The people are beating down the doors to get out of their Caribbean homeland, to seek refuge in places like the US, Canada and Western Europe. We have a sad state of affairs for our Caribbean eco-system so we are suffering from a bad record of societal abandonment –averaging a 70 percent brain drain rate. The reasons why people leave have been identified as “push and pull”.
… The movement behind the book Go Lean … Caribbean has consistently related that the United States of America functions as a Great Society but it has two societal defects: Institutional Racism and Crony-Capitalism. These societal defects can easily create a ‘Climate of Hate‘ that causes people to haze and blame-game the immigrant community.
In a previous blog-commentary, it was conveyed that America treats immigrants unappreciatedly – they are inflicted with a “long train of abuses”. The long-term Americans start towards the immigrants with hate and then eventually tolerate. After some decades they may then integrate with the immigrant community. But only after generations do they appreciate and celebrate the minority group. Think of the American experience of the Chinese, Italians, Jewish and Cuban populations.
This is also the reality of the Caribbean Black-and-Brown that has emigrated to the US, while they can more easily survive, the quest to thrive is more perplexing. They have to live in this environment filled with these societal defects.
… This commentary is one of the missions of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, to lower the “pull” attraction of life in the US. This is not being done with “smoke and mirrors” but rather this is just the truth. This is part 2 of 3 in a series on “Why Caribbean people need to Stay Home“, positing that the “grass is not greener on the other side”.
The truth of the matter is that immigrants are better able to survive in America – there is an abundance of minimum wage jobs – but to thrive is more of a challenge; consider the experiences in the foregoing news article. It would seem better for Caribbean people to work to remediate the problems in their homeland, rather than work to become immigrants in the US. But this is no easy task; and despite being necessary, it is hereby defined as heavy-lifting.
This is the continuation of the monthly Teaching Series from the movement behind the Go Lean book. These Teaching Series address issues germane to Caribbean life and culture; this is entry 4-of-5, continuing the thesis that many people from Caribbean member-states now have a voice in the American General Election for November 3; but our voice may at times pursue an agenda that is negative for a Caribbean escalation goal. We really should not look for a liberal US immigration policy as the panacea for Caribbean ills.
As related above, many of our Caribbean Diaspora do have a voice and a vote in this policy debate. These ones are relevant in America’s Decision 2020 due to the fact that our numbers in America are strong – upwards of 22 million people, 7 percent of the US population; this is enough to have relevance in any political race. (But we need to not forget the needs of the Caribbean ancestral homeland).
American citizens of Caribbean heritage should pursue the Greater Good in America and back in the Caribbean homeland. Consider here, how the role of Caribbean people is factored in for this theme of Decision 2020; see here the full catalog for this month’s Teaching Series:
- Decision 2020: Puerto Rico claps back at Trump
- Decision 2020: Haiti’s Agenda 2016 ==> 2020 – Trump never cared
- Decision 2020: Latino Gender Gap – More Toxic Masculinity
- Decision 2020: More Immigration or Less
- Decision 2020: What’s Next for Cuba & Venezuela
Yes, Decision 2020 allows us to analyze the motivations and sensibilities of not just the American eco-system, but also the Caribbean’s motivations for their future.
Frankly, we need to keep our people at home!
We need to engage our own plan to elevate our society so that our people are less inclined to leave in the first place. The Go Lean roadmap provides such a plan. Its a plan that is conceivable, believable and achievable for making the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.
We urged everyone – every stakeholder: government and citizens alike – to lean-in to this roadmap.
Yes, we can … look at our Caribbean homeland as home, rather than looking for some foreign destination. 🙂
About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:
- Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
- Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
- Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.
The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.
Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!
Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 13):
xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.
xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.
xix. Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores. This repatriation should be effected with the appropriate guards so as not to imperil the lives and securities of the repatriated citizens or the communities they inhabit. The right of repatriation is to be extended to any natural born citizens despite any previous naturalization to foreign sovereignties.
xx. Whereas the results of our decades of migration created a vibrant Diaspora in foreign lands, the Federation must organize interactions with this population into structured markets. Thus allowing foreign consumption of domestic products, services and media, which is a positive trade impact. These economic activities must not be exploited by others’ profiteering but rather harnessed by Federation resources for efficient repatriations.
xxiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.
Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.