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Congressional Hearing: Sub Committee on the Western Hemisphere
"Deportees in Latin America and the Caribbean"
July 24, 2007

Annmarie Barnes, Ph.D.
Chief Technical Director
Ministry of National Security
Jamaica

The mass deportation of criminal offenders to the Caribbean and Latin America constitutes one of the greatest threats to security in the region. Each year, thousands of convicted felons are returned from the United States, and while the vast majority may have been stripped of their material possessions, for many, their propensity to criminality remains intact.

While deportation may solve a few problems within the deporting country, the removal of criminal offenders to another geographical location does not protect the United States from further criminal actions by those persons. Recent experience shows that in a global world, problems of in-security cannot be constrained by borders, particularly in nation-states that are less able to keep pace with globalized threats.

Indeed, the mass relocation of criminal offenders from relatively high security environments to less secure societies that are by definition more criminogenic, has merely shifted the responsibility for managing such persons to their country of birth. By expanding the locale for criminal enterprise, deportation poses serious challenges not only to national security interests in receiving countries, but also to the management and control of security globally.

Scale of Deportation to the Region

In an analysis of deportation data for Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, a recent CARICOM study found that almost 30,000 criminal offenders had been deported to those countries between 1990 and 2005. Over 17,000 had been deported for drug offences; almost 1800 for possession of illegal firearms, and more than 600 for murder. The United States is responsible for more than seventy-five percent of all criminal deportations to the region.

With a combined population of less than 5 million people in the countries studied, the impact of this relocation of criminal offenders would be roughly equivalent to the influx, into the United States, of more than one million convicted drug offenders, and close to 40,000 convicted murderers.

In one of the countries studied, the deportation of criminal offenders rivals the number of convicted persons released from local penal institutions annually, practically doubling the number of criminal offenders released into that society each year.

The study also found that many deported persons continue to engage in crime subsequent to their deportation. For example, deported persons in Trinidad and Tobago were over three times more likely to be arrested than the average for the general population, while in Jamaica, deported persons were just as likely to be convicted of a crime, with one in every 18 deported persons, compared to 1 in 17 in the general population, having been convicted of committing a crime.

In addition, data on self-reported offending patterns among deported persons also reveal that more than fifty percent had engaged in criminal activities that may have gone undetected by local law enforcement authorities.

SOCIAL EFFECTS

Interviews with deported persons revealed that deportation has caused devastating socio-psychological effects, not only for deported persons, but for other family members, and in particular their children, the vast majority of whom have been left behind in the United States, and who have little or no contact with the deported parent.

Of 345 deported persons interviewed, the majority were parents whose children in the United States face extreme hardships, both emotionally and financially. Overall, 96% of parents had left their children when they were deported, and less than 20% provide any support for those children, who have become dependent on other relatives and welfare programmes for their primary means of support.

CURRENT PROCEDURES

Procedural guidelines for deportation vary by country, but in general, receiving countries are beset by the following problems:

• Inadequate period of notification prior to removal;
• Incomplete information, such as the absence of criminal antecedents;
• Insufficient time for the settlement of affairs; and
• Pressure to issue an emergency travel document, which compromises the process of identity verification.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In its deliberations concerning the impact of criminal deportation on countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, the Congress of the United States is respectfully asked to consider the following recommendations:

• The establishment of procedural guidelines that would help to streamline the deportation process, with due regard for the interests of both deporting and receiving countries;
• A Review of the legislative framework that governs the deportation of long term residents, with a view to more appropriately balancing the interests of the deporting country, the individual being deported, the best interests of children, and the long-term impact on receiving countries;
• The allocation of technical and financial resources to support social reintegration and law enforcement programmes in receiving countries, including, inter alia,:
  • Support for the re-integration of deported persons, including training and access to rehabilitative programming;
  • Financial support for establishment of Transitional facilities; and
  • Increased support for law enforcement services in the receiving countries.

CONCLUSION

The massive relocation of criminal offenders from developed to developing nations, is a counter-security measure in a global world. If global concerns about security are to be universally respected, then the United States, the nation at the forefront of the charge to create a safer global community, should ensure that it does not engage in action that shifts the burden of maintaining security to countries least equipped to do so.

The nation-states of the Caribbean are relying upon this Congress of the United States of America to recognize that criminal deportation constitutes a real threat to the security of the region, and to take actions that remain true to this nation's ideal of enhancing global security, and creating a just society for all mankind.