Belizeans from end to end of our country swelled with pride when the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), spoke of our generosity as we began the process of regularizing the status of 40,000 or more persons presently residing in our country. Speaking to Belizeans on his visit to our country on Saturday last, AMLO said the amnesty was a “humanitarian decision of the highest order”, that we were “setting an example to the world.” PM Briceño said he believes AMLO was moved by our tremendous humanitarian act, and that is why he decided to remove all tariffs from agricultural commodities from Belize.
Regularizing the status of 40,000 plus individuals in our country, which has a population of between 400,000 and 450,000 people, puts us among the most immigrant-friendly nations in the world. It is not inconsistent with our history. In the 20th century, Belize welcomed relatively large groups of people from all over the world who were seeking a peaceful country where they could settle down and raise their families. With Central America in turmoil in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Guatemala and El Salvador, we had two amnesties. The Immigration Department said that in 1984 we registered 8,680 undocumented migrants, and 11,168 migrants received the gift of permanent residence in 1999.
The Immigration Department said a 2010 Statistical Institute of Belize Census reported 14.2% of our people were born abroad. When the present amnesty is concluded, the percentage of persons in Belize who weren’t born here will be in excess of 20%. Absorbing 40,000 plus people comes with challenges. The Pope of Rome would have to declare us St. Belize, if this exercise was completed without any grumbling.
The impact of regularizing 40,000 plus persons will be felt economically, culturally, racially, and in party politics. Most legal immigrants in Belize are here on invitation to fill positions that require skills our country is short of, in health care, the judiciary, and management, or as investors in tourism, agriculture, and call centers. Largely, illegal immigrants are desperate human beings who have left their countries of origin because they see no or little future for themselves and their families where they lived.
Illegal immigrants in our country engage in micro enterprises, such as food vending on the streets and yard cleaning, and they compete with the local work force for jobs in construction and agriculture, oftentimes driving down the wages of born Belizeans. Some can’t find jobs because of their illegal status and they end up in criminal activities, such as stealing, drug-running, and prostitution.
Regularizing 40,000 plus persons who are in Belize illegally shouldn’t much increase the strain on the health and education systems, because they already use those services. Their positive contributions to the economy, as consumers, won’t change with their improved status, but they should contribute more to the tax base.
Regularized immigrants will compete more aggressively for jobs, and this could increase friction if the GOB isn’t more protective of Belizeans at the margins. Sam Fulwood III, in a 1995 Los Angeles Times story, explained what lies at the core of tensions between Afro Caribbean peoples and Afro Americans. In his essay, Fulwood III said, about workplace competition between the two groups: “Some West Indians say American blacks don’t want to work very hard and are too quick to use racism as an excuse for their failure to advance. At the same time, many black Americans resent West Indians, arguing they are too eager to take their jobs or too willing to work with white people at the expense of black Americans.”
The vast majority of immigrants being regularized are Central Americans. They won’t be adding anything new to the cultural fabric, but with their numbers, their cultural influence will increase. A big part of Central American culture is the Spanish language. It is sensible for Belizeans who aren’t conversant in Spanish to learn it, and essential for regularized immigrants from Central America to embrace English, the official language of Belize. While English is the official language, and it makes us unique in Central America, the true uniqueness of Belize is the Kriol language. Kriol might actually be a dialect, as opined by some purists, but it is the thread that holds the national fabric together.
A great concern about making so many people “official” is how it will impact race relations in the country. Putting it kindly, many Central Americans aren’t familiar with people of African descent. When Columbus invaded this part of the world 500 years ago, a hierarchy based on skin color was established, with white highest on the ladder. Many immigrants from Central America are of a “whiter hue”, and with regularization, their confidence will soar. Those who did not put down their racial baggage when they crossed our borders might need to enter programs that “culture” them away from that warped view of the human race.
Race relations must never be ignored. White supremacists in the US have labeled the inexorable increase in the number of non-white people in that country as the “great replacement theory”, and just last week a young white racist opened fire on a group of people, mostly Black, killing 10 of them.
At the end of the next census, it will be found that, as a percentage, the Afro population in Belize has dwindled. While Afro Belizeans have complained about their decreasing percentage of the population, partly because Black is racially and economically at the bottom of Columbus’s ladder, the group’s approach to race is to “mingle”, not to be violent.
Party politics is also a concern in regard to this regularization. However, the Immigration Department says immigrants who qualify for full citizenship won’t attain such status in time to vote in the next general election, and that has served to calm the local political waters, somewhat.
Tensions exist between peoples over religion, culture, skin color, hair texture, sexual preferences, class, politics, economics, many other things, and it doesn’t take much to fire it up. With this regularization, it becomes even more important for many in our country to stop pretending that our fabric is completely homogeneous. Still, we are the greatest melting pot in the world. Being generous is great, but Belize’s leaders must be sensible and work hard to preserve our unique culture and racial harmony which we have forged over the years. In respect to those two special attributes, no other country has what we have. We will preserve what we have if we are more honest, and if we double our efforts to ease natural and fabricated tensions.