Caribbean-American nationals urge vote for Kamala Harris

As Americans vote in the Presidential Elections on Tuesday, an overwhelming number of Caribbean community and political activists and legislators in New York are urging Caribbean nationals to cast ballots for Democratic United States Vice President

, the daughter of retired Jamaican economist Dr. Donald Harris, saying she is the better candidate to be the next President of the U.S.

In what polls and pundits indicate is a dead-locked race, Harris is endeavoring to be the first woman of color, Caribbean, and Asian-American to be the President of the United States in the race against her Republican challenger, former U.S. President Donald J. Trump.

“This Election Day marks a turning point for our nation, where Americans will make their choice about who this country stands for and what it stands against,” U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, told Caribbean Life on Sunday. “It will be our moment to choose between one man’s criminality and our common decency and between turning the page or returning to the past.

“This election is centered in choice,” added the representative for the predominantly Caribbean 9thCongressional District in Brooklyn. “Ours must be to elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the United States.

“For nearly a decade, we’ve watched Donald Trump’s rhetoric and promises force Americans to live in fear,” she continued. “We’ve seen the pain he’s brought to immigrant communities like those of our Haitian neighbors. And, from women whose reproductive freedoms are under assault to low-income families whose access to healthcare is at risk, we know the harm he represents to America’s most vulnerable groups.

“Not only does Kamala Harris understand what needs to be done to protect them and forge a just path forward, she is the only candidate in the race with the capability and integrity to do so,” Clarke said. “On Nov. 5 and on the long road ahead, she has my support. And I humbly ask for yours.”

Delroy Wright, a Jamaican-born community activist in Brooklyn, said: “As it relates to the two candidates running for election for President, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it is a clear choice of which will benefit the Caribbean people most.

“Donald Trump is a racist. That is a stand-alone reason to vote for Kamala Harris,” he alleged. “Donald Trump is also a liar. Most Caribbean voters are Democrats. Therefore, those that vote for him will not benefit from his presidency. And if Caribbeans are thinking that he is better for the economy in order to vote for him, that is a blatant misconception. The record shows that he inherited a strong economy from Obama (former U.S. President Barack Obama) —for which he ‘tanked’ it by his mismanagement of the pandemic and stands to inherit another strong economy again if he wins this election.

“The Biden/Harris economy matric, which measures if a sitting president deserves reelection, is very good,” Wright added. “Even inflation has reached pre-pandemic level, which means it’s at the level Trump inherited it before he ‘tanked’ the economy.

“He is also distorting the Caribbean people’s natural conservative culture to goad them into voting for him when the conservative culture of Donald Trump and the Republican Party is diabolically different from us,” he continued. “Caribbean people practice virtuous conservatism embedded in Godly principles—notice I did not say Christianity – while Donald Trump and the Republicans append theirs with racist elements.

“The Caribbean voters are considered to be highly educated,” he said. “Caribbean voters need to exert their education in casting their vote; and, if they do, then Kamala Harris is a natural choice.” 

Irwine G. Clare, Sr., OD – another Jamaican-born community activist, who is the long-serving managing director of the Jamaica, Queens-based Caribbean Immigrant Services, Inc. (CIS) – warned that, if Trump wins Tuesday’s U.S. Presidential Elections, “it will be mayhem for immigrants of color in the USA.

“Speaking strictly from the perspective of a Caribbean immigrant, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, I, too, am very concerned and anxious,” he told Caribbean Life, stating that Trump’s “vitriolic statements and promises of mass deportation must not be taken lightly, as to do so will also cause havoc on legal immigrants as well.”

Clare said Caribbean and other immigrants – who illegally came to the United States with their parents as children, known as “Dreamers” – will be Trump’s “immediate targets” for deportation if he wins the elections.

Clare noted that these “Dreamers” have been protected by Presidential Executive Orders to live and work legally since President Obama initially passed them.

“Near 1 million would immediately be at risk for deportation – promised by both Trump and Vance (JD Vance, Trump’s running mate) as day one missive,” he said. “Widespread fear would be spread throughout our community at a minimum, with far-reaching implications socially, economically, and on our mental health.”

Clare said the other aspects of Trump’s impact are “clearly spelled out in his blueprint Project 2025” (the Conservative Heritage Foundation’s plan to shake up the U.S. federal political system).

“The devil is in the details,” he said. “I have already voted (in early voting) for Kamala Harris and her team, as well as for Democrats down the line, as I am convinced that they will better serve my interests and that of the Caribbean Diaspora.”

Martin Felix, a Grenadian-born adjunct college professor who also teaches in a public school in Brooklyn, said that, as a registered independent in this election cycle, he finds it “important to support the Harris-Walz ticket because I find it important to side with a ticket that is on the side of workers and consumers as opposed to CEOs (chief executive officers), big tech, the big banks, and billionaires.

“The ‘choice’ on the other side is very clear: You have a growing sentiment of racism and xenophobia that they are trying to mainstream,” said Felix, an executive member of the Brooklyn-based group Caribbean-Americans United in Support of Kamala Harris for President, adding that “other immigrants are being made scapegoats by the ultra-right’s racist and anti-immigrant campaign, particularly labeling them as inherently criminals and misfits. Through their proposed policies and rhetoric, immigrants are scapegoats for virtually all issues – from public safety to inflation to climate change and housing.

“We in New York and other ‘Blue States’ (symbol of the Democratic Party) should not rest in the relative complacency of living in a so-called ‘Blue State,’” Felix warned. “For example, one of Trump’s agenda is an attack on public education, which has made the battle for public education an existential one, threatening to ramp up his attacks on DEI programs if he gets back into office, and as well as declaring to shut down the Department of Education.  This is in addition to reducing federal oversight in education and limiting government spending on essential services.

DEI — which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—is a set of values and practices that aim to create more inclusive and equitable workplaces and communities.

“This is no idle talk, for it is part of a broader agenda, as described in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has become a sort of manifesto of the Trump campaign,” Felix said. “Caribbean and immigrants are generally concentrated in high-density urban areas with large public school systems, for example, New York City, the world’s largest school system.

“Attacking public schools and teachers’ unions while promoting vouchers and other initiatives that drain resources from classrooms have been the Republicans GOP (Grand Old Party) rallying cry for decades,” Felix continued. “America has relied on public schools for much of its developing years, but the system is increasingly under attack.”

But he said the 2024 Presidential race is a decisive contest for all vulnerable groups.

“While Harris and Walz are courting the immigrant vote, the opposite seems to be true on the Republican side of the fence, with messaging of demonization and deportation, especially targeted toward Mexican and Haitian communities,” Felix said. “Even Puerto Ricans, who are legally not immigrants, based on the Caribbean island’s current status, have been rhetorically relegated to immigrant status, with the national insult of our sisters and brothers as disposable.

“The best way to respond to this is to come out to vote in our largest numbers ever, especially in strategic areas where our votes matter most,” he urged.

Trinidadian Ernest Skinner, another executive member of Caribbean-Americans United in Support of Kamala Harris for President, said he strongly believes “Kamala is going to win with significant margins.

“I hope that the American voting public is more sophisticated,” he said. “In hearing what comes out of Trump’s mouth – anti-women, anti-military, anti-immigrants – he makes no apology because there’s a sizeable number of people who think that way, who hold those racist thoughts.

“The vast majority of non-Whites are with Kamala,” Skinner added. “Many Republicans have come out against Trump, and I believe that will take Kamala over the victory line.

“I’m going to be up all night (Tuesday),” he continued. “He’s (Trump) an unprincipled individual. I’m only putting out positive vibes Kamala’s way.”

Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair, New York State Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, said the party has been relentlessly making sure that every single vote counts and voice gets heard towards electing Democratic candidates from Brooklyn’s nominees to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

“The Brooklyn Democratic Party is committed to ensuring a Harris-Walz victory and Democratic control of the (U.S.) House and Senate,” Bichotte-Hermelyn, who represents the 42nd Assembly District in Brooklyn, told Caribbean Life.  “We’re taking action in key areas that will decide our nation’s future and uniting Brooklynites to help build a brighter future.”

She said the party’s bus trips over the past several weekends have included GOTV campaigns in Pennsylvania and helping Democratic Congressional candidates win hotly-contested races in New York.

Bichotte-Hermelyn said the Brooklyn Democratic Party has also been “laser-focused on keeping our borough blue” by “doing a lot of get-out-the-vote efforts.”

Herman Hall, the Grenadian-born founder and publisher of the Brooklyn-based Caribbean magazine Everybody’s, said Caribbean-Americans are solidly behind Harris’s candidacy.  

“Irrespective of the U.S. Presidential Election result, the overwhelming support of Caribbean Americans for Vice President Kamala Harris and their unwavering loyalty to the Democratic Party is a significant factor in the swing states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan,” he said, noting that the three states have large Caribbean communities.

Hall said the Caribbean-American vote in Pennsylvania and Georgia in 2020 was “a reason why Biden/Harris carried those states.

“In 2024, Caribbean-American communities across the U.S., from Texas to Michigan and New Jersey to California, have demonstrated their proactive approach to the election by casting their ballot during early voting days,” he said.

Hall said his magazine recently surveyed 249 US subscribers, finding “unwavering support for Vice President Kamala Harris within the Caribbean-American community.

“With a staggering 92.5 % expressing their likelihood to vote for Harris and only 7 % for former President Donald Trump, these numbers speak volumes about Caribbean-American’s political preferences,” he said.

Hall said that based on Everybody’s analysis of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections in the seven swing states—where Trump won all seven in 2016 and their 93 Electoral College votes, and in 2020, when Biden won 77 Electoral College votes in six states — he predicts that Harris will win six of the seven swing states in 2024, “giving her 82 Electoral College votes, and will be the next president of the U.S.”