UC San Diego

Venezuela is in crisis and people are fleeing. However, unlike in the Ukraine/Russia conflict, Venezuelan displacement is not a consequence of war, or any of the other five conditions delineated under the Geneva Convention of 1951. Instead, the Venezuelan exodus comes as the most impactful symptom of political malfeasance and economic mismanagement in high office. Consequently, millions of Venezuelans have been displaced and many now live precarious lives, on island nations ill prepared for their arrival and/or permanence. Notwithstanding, neighboring small island developing states (SIDS) like Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) are now experiencing unprecedented migrant inflows from Venezuela. This novel wave of immigration has presented T&T and other Caribbean countries with unique challenges seldom seen in the conventional migration states of the global North. This study asserts that these SIDS are a type of emergent migration state and advances an addition to existing migration state model by examining the unique ways in which such small island decolonized countries respond to unprecedented changes in immigration patterns. This study takes the case of T&T and uses it to illustrate the immigrant nature of population expansion in the colonial West Indies and how the now independent countries of the Caribbean had their demographics artificially created. Additionally, the study explains the use of ambivalent immigration policy in SIDMS as a function of path dependent legislation and their past.