The (un)welcome neighbour? Visa regimes and Haitian mobility rights in CARICOM

The first Black republic in the Caribbean, Haiti is alienated from its Anglophone neighbours due to its violent colonial history. Haiti’s accession to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was intended to bridge this distance. However, Haitians face restricted mobility rights within this regional community due to a visa requirement. Moreover, Haiti is the sole member state upon which this requirement is imposed. The article therefore contemplates the following questions: (1) How has CARICOM enabled mobility rights of Haitian nationals? (2) In what ways do national policies converge/diverge from regional provisions? and (3) what factors explain convergence/divergence in regional and national mobility agendas? The article draws on thematic document analysis to answer these questions. The article demonstrates that institutionally CARICOM has moved towards visa liberalisation for Haitians; however, national migration policy in most of CARICOM’s member states deviates by maintaining closed visa regimes. Haitians are therefore (un)welcome in CARICOM. A multiplicity of factors, including conflicting scales of sovereignty and the existence of parallel mobility regimes, explain divergence between CARICOM and its constitutive member states. The article’s primary empirical contributions are its detailed description of the Commonwealth Caribbean’s approach to Haitian mobility rights and its theorisation of Haitian’s mobility rights in CARICOM.