Twenty-two foreign deportees — not one of them Jamaican — touched down at Norman Manley on Tuesday, sent here by the United States under an agreement Parliament has never seen. The Opposition says that is the scandal — and the Government says Washington won’t let it show the document.
By Calvin Brown (WiredJA) Mid-afternoon Tuesday, 22 foreign nationals — all adults, seven of them women — stepped off a flight from the United States at Norman Manley International Airport, were processed swiftly and driven away under police escort to a location no one would name. The media was kept at a distance. The passenger manifest stayed under wraps. Local sources told the Associated Press the group was largely South American.
Let there be no confusion: these are not Jamaicans being sent home. They are citizens of other countries whom Washington wants out of America, routed through Kingston because the United States has chosen not to fly them directly to their own homelands. Jamaica is not their destination. It is their waiting room.
It was the opening act of the deportee transit arrangement Kingston signed with the Trump regime in June. And it unfolded exactly as the People’s National Party had warned: in public view, but out of public sight.
‘Policy by press release’
In a statement issued Tuesday, the PNP demanded that the Government table the full memorandum of understanding (MOU) in Parliament and make a ministerial statement immediately, calling it disgraceful that the first flight had been announced in a “perfunctory manner” while the agreement itself remained under lock and key.
“The Government is asking Jamaicans to accept a security arrangement they have not been allowed to see,” said Fitz Jackson, MP, Opposition Spokesperson on National Security. “We have not been told where these individuals will be housed, under what security conditions, or who will be responsible for monitoring them.”
Jackson’s list of unanswered questions runs long: the operating procedures, the legal liability Jamaica assumes, what happens if a receiving country refuses to take someone back, and who covers security, health and logistics if — as promised — Jamaica pays nothing. He wants the Government to define what, precisely, it means by “transit”, and to disclose who is coming, batch by batch.
“It is not transparency. It is policy by press release.”— Senator Donna Scott-Mottley
Senator Donna Scott-Mottley, the Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, was blunter still. Announcing a cap of 25 persons per fortnight and a suspension trigger of 10 asylum applications without showing Jamaicans the legal text, she said, is “policy by press release, and that is unacceptable on a matter of this magnitude.”
The Government’s case
The Holness administration insists the deal was built with guardrails. In a joint release on Monday, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and National Security said operating procedures had been finalised with Washington to ensure the arrangement runs in a “safe, orderly and lawful manner.” The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been engaged to support the foreign deportees while they are on the island and to move them on to their home countries or elsewhere.
The ministries’ commitments are four: no cost to the Jamaican taxpayer, no one with criminal antecedents, a maximum of 25 people every two weeks, and suspension of the programme if 10 deportees apply to stay through asylum or other humanitarian processes.
National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang has argued that Jamaica retains the right to refuse anyone at any time, and that either side can walk away without lengthy notice. He has also cited a roughly 94 per cent onward-return rate in countries running similar programmes.
On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said on X that the agreement was negotiated “with protection of Jamaica and the Jamaican people in mind.” She maintained that there is nothing prejudicial in it — but conceded that the United States has not agreed to its publication.
Whose secret is it?
That concession is the crux of the matter. Kingston says, in effect, that it would show the document if it could. Washington says no. The result is a sovereign Parliament being briefed by press statement on an agreement covering its own territory — on terms set by another government.
Jamaica is not alone in this. Dr Chang has pointed to Costa Rica, Panama, Belize, St Kitts and Antigua as fellow participants, though Antigua’s Prime Minister said this week that his country’s arrangement is still being worked out. Further afield, the Trump regime’s third-country removals have reached Liberia, Eswatini and Paraguay, and the US Supreme Court is set to weigh their legality.
The unease is not confined to Gordon House. Bishop Alvin Bailey, who leads a local evangelical alliance, has asked why the US cannot simply send these individuals straight home, and has said openly that he does not trust the Government’s account. Opposition Leader Mark Golding has repeatedly challenged the administration to say what Jamaica actually gains.
The PNP is careful to say it supports safe and orderly migration and values the partnership with the United States. Its quarrel is with process, not principle. The Government’s assurances may all prove sound. But on Tuesday, 22 non-Jamaicans arrived on Jamaican soil under rules that Jamaica’s elected representatives have never been allowed to read.
If the schedule holds, another batch of other nations’ deportees could land within a fortnight. The question now is whether Parliament sees the MOU before it does.
