Where do Caribbean migrants come from? Across CARICOM, the answer depends on where you’re standing.
Data from the IOM’s latest migration report, drawing on UNDESA mid-year 2024 estimates, reveals distinct patterns shaping each country’s migrant population. Some are defined by movement within the region. Others reflect the spillover of crises beyond their borders.
Intra-Caribbean migration remains a powerful force. Guyanese nationals are the top migrant group in five CARICOM countries – Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, St. Lucia, Suriname, and St. Kitts and Nevis. Trinidadians, meanwhile, are the leading group in Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This is Caribbean people moving within the Caribbean, often following economic opportunity and family ties.
But proximity to regional instability has reshaped migration in other parts of the bloc. In Guyana, 75% of migrants are Venezuelan – a figure that reflects years of crisis-driven movement across the border. Trinidad and Tobago shows a similar pattern, with Venezuelans comprising 30% of its migrant population. In The Bahamas, Haitians account for 26% of migrants; in Dominica, 31%.
Not every country fits these patterns. Belize’s migrant population is shaped by Central America – Guatemalans (43%), Salvadorians (16%), and Hondurans (16%) make up the majority. Jamaica’s top origin country is the United States (13%), followed by the United Kingdom, suggesting return migration and diaspora ties rather than regional movement.
The data paints a picture of a region shaped by overlapping forces: free movement frameworks, geographic proximity, economic pull factors, and displacement from neighbouring crises.
Source: IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix, Migration Trends in the English and Dutch Speaking Caribbean, 2024 (using UNDESA mid-year 2024 data)
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Guyana is now a rich country. These people should be going home.
When you speak of Guyanese leading migrants is ethnically specific, the African descendants in Guyana and Trinidad are treated by the indian as outcast, just like in India the darker indians are condemned, it’s the same ideology in Guyana and Trinidad and across latin america, lighter shades are treated better, in Guyana the black African descendants has to migrate, and if the indians migrate, they are accepted in countries of more higher standards of living than the black people.
Hence why the Foreign Affairs and Embassy in Washington DC is stacked with his Guyanese Indian cronies.
They came as REFUGEES when their dollar wasn’t worth shit.
Those Guyanese in Antigua should go back home. I do not mean that in a negative way at all.Guyana’s economy is very flourishing at this time.There should be lots of work by there for all to share.
WHAT THE HELL…! …SOME IDIOTS! ‘…DONALD TRUMP MENTALITY/PHILOSOPHY?
THE DELUSIONAL VIEW: ‘…SECULARITY OR ‘…BIGOTRY: …IDIOCY AND MORE IDIOCY
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WHATEVER THE AGENDA:
First, ‘…KAMALA,’ as one of the region’s:
(i) ‘…OUTSPOKEN NATIONAL LEADERS: and
(ii) …REGIONAL PROPHESIERS,’ seems darn right:
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She has prophesied that ‘…CARICOM:’ was
(a) ‘…DYSFUNCTIONAL: and
(b) …SELF-DESTRUCTIVELY, DOOMED.’
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SO ARE MANY ‘…IDIOTS.’
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DONALD TRUMP’S CORRUPTED MINDS:
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Though ‘…POLLSTER PETER WICKHAM,’ seemingly saw something totally different about ‘…CARICOM AND KAMALA,’ writer of this news story has given ‘…COMMENTERS’ reasons, to express that which seemed to have been harbored in their:
(a) ‘…TRUMP’S CORRUPTED MINDS: which speaks to
(b) …SECULARITY: and
(c) …BIGOTRY.’
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WHAT THE HELL…!
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Now, until ‘…PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP: sought to change:
(a) ‘…THE APPARENT DELUSIONAL VIEW: that
(b) …THE UNITED STATES: was
(c) …A ‘…FREE-FOR-ALL COUNTRY: that
(d) …IT WAS NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY ACCOMMODATING:
(i) ‘…MIGRANTS-DOCUMENTED/UNDOCUMENTED:
(ii) …ASSYLUM SEEKERS- DITTO:
(iii) …CRIMINALS OF WHATEVER CLASSIFICATION:’
(e) …SOME ‘…IDIOTS,’ SEEMINGLY, NEVER THOUGHT: of
(f) …PROVOKING THOUGHTS: on
(a) ‘… REGIONAL INTEGRATION:
(b) …CARICOM: and
(c) …OECS NATIONALS.’
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FOR EDIFICATION, SOME MAY WISH TO REVISIT THE WORDS:
(i) ‘…REFUGEES: and
(ii) …ASSYLUM SEEKERS.’
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IDIOCY AND MORE IDIOCY.
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NO STUPID COMMENTS.
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WALK…? AH AH: …TALK AS STUPIDITY URGES: …TALK AS YOU LIKE.
DON’T SAY, LIKE ‘…MARIA, THOUGH:
SOME DARN ‘…Ting ’bout bun dem’ (Vernacular).
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