Jamaica Receives First Flight Under Third-Country Deportation Deal With US
Theo Al Jazeera English
Jamaica has received its first flight of 22 deportees from the United States under a third-country transit agreement, part of Washington's expanding deportation campaign. Opposition leaders are demanding transparency, calling the unpublished deal a security threat, while Jamaica's government says it is only a transit arrangement and costs the country nothing.
Twenty-two people deported from the United States arrived at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, Jamaica, marking the first flight under a third-country deportation agreement between the Caribbean island nation and the administration of President Donald Trump.
According to media reports, the group was then put on buses and taken to an undisclosed location. The flight is part of a series of international agreements the United States is expanding to support the largest deportation campaign in its history.
Third-country deportations typically involve people who are not citizens of, and have no ties to, the destination country. The practice has drawn widespread criticism from human rights organizations and advocates, who question its legality.
Jamaica, however, is among a growing number of countries agreeing to accept deportees under this model. According to Third Country Deportation Watch, an advocacy project affiliated with Refugees International and Human Rights First, at least 35 countries have signed third-country deportation agreements with the United States. The Washington Post reported last month that the Trump administration has allocated about $410 million to support these efforts.
Jamaica signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding in June to accept third-country deportees. Under the plan, the country will send deportees on to their countries of origin or other destinations after they enter. The Jamaican government also committed not to accept anyone with a criminal record.
In a joint statement, Jamaica's Ministry of National Security and Peace and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade said: "The Government reiterates that this is a transit arrangement to facilitate the return of third-country nationals to their countries of origin or other receiving countries." The statement said care for the deportees would be supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, and that "the Government of Jamaica will not be paying for this arrangement."
Opposition leaders in Jamaica have nonetheless spoken out against the deal, calling it a threat to the island's security and asking why it was never publicly debated. "Jamaicans are being asked to trust a secret document that concerns their security, their communities and their public services," said Fitz Jackson, the opposition spokesman on national security.
In response, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith argued that all questions about the deportation agreement "have been answered." She also said the US side had not agreed to publish the deal. "As I explained before, some countries agree to accept criminals, we do not," she wrote on social media. "Some countries have published their agreements, but our partner has not agreed to publish this one."
In the United States, legal challenges to third-country deportations are continuing. Advocates say deportees are removed from the country without full legal process, violating the constitutional right to a fair hearing. Critics also raise concerns that the practice sometimes sends immigrants to countries where they may face danger.
Some receiving countries, such as South Sudan, are in conflict or have been accused of serious human rights abuses. The opposition even argues that third-country deportations are being used to circumvent court protection orders — orders that can bar the US government from sending certain immigrants back to their home countries over fears of violence and persecution. By sending people to a third country, critics say, the Trump administration avoids violating protection orders, even though in some cases the third country later returns the deportees to the country named in the US protection order.
In a February report by Democratic senators on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an unnamed official said the purpose of such far-flung deportations was to instill fear. "The point is that the administration can threaten people that they will be dropped in the middle of nowhere," the official said. "The purpose is to make people afraid."
