Responses to my first article in this series last weekend entitled ‘Pros and Cons of Selling Passports to The Highest Bidder!’ were very encouraging, most in agreement and some admitting they either ‘Never gave it a second thought’ or ‘Didn’t think twice’ about the perspective I offered on the sale of citizenship (and passports) as a national income-earning mechanism.
I’m also sure I’m not alone in concluding that while the Citizenship by Investment programmes (CBI or CIPs) have fundamental flaws, they’re embraced with bigger hugs elsewhere and do provide much-needed funds for the cash-strapped Caribbean economies they serve.
Now for my second take on the subject: Citizenship and Migration.
Time and History always offer the Lessons of Life and nationals who slip their Caribbean citizenship into their back-pockets to make place for American ‘Green Cards’ in their wallets (or to seek new lives and better opportunities in ‘Lands of Milk and Honey’ in Europe, Canada, Australia or elsewhere, including Africa) are suddenly realizing, or being reminded, that the only real citizenship they have is what they were born with – and left home.
‘Undocumented Immigrants’ in the US are learning this hard lesson the hard way ahead of Donald Trump 2.0’s MAGA round-up after his inauguration in January 2025.
Countless Haitians who sought refuge in the US after the devastating earthquake and didn’t bother to legalize the status of the families they raised there are already fleeing across the US border to Canada – and likewise other Caribbean and Latin American nationals in the same boat, many of who are only now starting to really miss ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’.
They risk fateful journeys to imagined kaleidoscopes of invisible lands ‘where milk and honey flows’, painted into their dreams over time – and in the process ceding their nation’s citizenship to others, as a commodity and at a price.
In the distant ‘Lands of Opportunity’, some can help families back home, but most remain poor – and without the expected opportunities – in most cases among citizens who don’t welcome them.
History has offered select lessons.
President Donald Trump issued a ban on immigrants from five ‘Muslim nations’ in Africa during his first term; and in the second, he’ll use the US military to clean out ‘illegal immigrants’ in a land built by immigrants.
Same in the UK, where a recent inaccurate online claim – that ‘immigrants’ had killed three children – led to the worst race riots in recent British history, racist bums targeting hotels housing immigrants applying for asylum.
Those riots exposed the still-very-naked underbelly of racism’s roots in the UK, even today when there are more black and non-white faces in high places than ever before.
But there’s still not much change to how blue-blooded UK citizens, like Americans Red-and-Blue, very negatively view any possibility of poor nationals from other parts of Planet Earth being able to ‘buy’ equal citizenship – and passports.
Approval of new citizenships will naturally increase across the Caribbean, which will eventually lead to a situation where and when Dual Citizens who purchased their equal rights in the Caribbean will legally wish to partake in national politics and/or influence the outcome of national elections.
But not so in the rich and developed nations of the North where the migrants head for, as Uncle Sam will hold-back citizenship for as long as possible and in cases where migrants’ children are born in the US, they become American Citizens that Uncle Sam will always feel free to hunt anywhere else if and when they break US law.
Worse, non-white and immigrant descendants are estimated to outnumber so-called ‘pure-white’ American citizens and voters in the USA in the not-too-distant future, in a land where its First People (so-called ‘Native Americans’) were referred to by the original European invaders and immigrants as ‘Savages’ and are today still treated as second-class citizens in the land of their forebears.
Refugees fleeing wars and hard times from Europe — like those fleeing Ukraine and from nations where there’s political capital to be gained (like Russia, North Korea, Cuba, etc.) – are treated with welcome red carpets in the USA and Western Europe, while Congolese, Ethiopians, Haitians, Palestinians, Somalis, Sudanese and others (also fleeing wars and conflicts) are treated differently: like out-of-space aliens.
All that said, it’s easy to blame governments of nations immigrants are fleeing from for not making home economically and socially healthy to discourage citizens from wanting to leave.
But like with enslaved and indentured victims during and after Slavery, the propaganda enticements today are most irresistible, yet receiving nations refuse to create the spaces needed to welcome and include those enticed by their ‘greener pastures’ propaganda.
The absence of the promised Gardens of Eden and the rejection of sons and daughters of former European colonies in Africa who served in wars for their ‘motherland’ inevitably led to social fightback against racism and other forms of exclusion, including religious and cultural persecution and prosecution.
Here again, ‘immigrants’, as victims, are blamed for their plights and told to ‘Go Back Home!’
My Saint Lucia passport can take me to over 100 nations worldwide, without restriction or rejection.
But I still don’t like the fact that anyone from anywhere who’s ‘up to no good’ elsewhere, can buy a Saint Lucian or other Caribbean passport for the lowest price, in a region where governments race to the bottom of the pricing ladder.
Meanwhile, the CIP cash cows continue milking liquid funds for needy governments and since crookedness is part of the wider game, Due Diligence levels will determine the speed with which horns can be examined.
It’s never been an easy task, but for as long as Caribbean governments are convinced the rewards are worth the risks, they will continue treating CIPs like ‘Gifts from God’ – as fossil fuels are now being described by leaders of oil-producing nations.
And that’s the bottom line!