The U.S. has begun sending non-Jamaican migrants to Jamaica, with the first deportation flight arriving Tuesday under a new agreement between the two countries.
The arrangement expands the Trump administration’s controversial third-country deportation policy, which allows the U.S. to remove migrants to countries other than their own. The Supreme Court has allowed the practice to continue while legal challenges move through the courts.
The administration has also carried out third-country deportations to Liberia, Eswatini and Paraguay, among other destinations.
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First flight carries 22 migrants
The flight brought 22 adults, including seven women, to Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport on Tuesday. After processing, authorities transported the migrants by bus to an undisclosed location.
Officials have not released a passenger manifest, but The Associated Press reported, citing local sources, that most of the migrants were South American nationals.
Journalists were denied access to both the airport and the location where the migrants were taken.
Jamaican authorities said the restrictions were part of procedures intended to ensure the transfers are carried out in a “safe, orderly and lawful manner.”
Jamaica serves as temporary transit point
The first flight follows an agreement signed in June allowing the U.S. to transfer non-Jamaican migrants to Jamaica while arrangements are made to send them to their home countries or another country willing to receive them.
Under the agreement, Jamaica is serving as a temporary transit point rather than a permanent destination for the deportees.
Jamaican officials said they expect to receive about 25 deportees every two weeks.
In a joint statement, Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security and Peace and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade emphasized that the arrangement is intended to facilitate onward deportations with assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
“The government reiterates that this is a transit arrangement intended to facilitate the return of Third Country Nationals to their country of origin or other receiving countries, with the support of the IOM,” the ministries said.
They added the arrangement will not be funded by the Jamaican government and “no third-country national with criminal antecedents will be permitted to transit through Jamaica.”
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