Jamaica Takes Its First U.S. Third-Country Deportees Under a Deal That Bars Criminal Records and Caps Arrivals at 25 Every Two Weeks

Jamaica received its first flight of non-Jamaican deportees from the United States on Oct. 13, becoming the latest country to take in people the Trump administration is deporting to countries other than their own. The 22 adults who landed in Kingston arrived under a still-secret memorandum of understanding that limits arrivals to 25 people every two weeks, bars anyone with a criminal record and lets Jamaica suspend the deal if 10 of them seek asylum there.

The flight comes two weeks after the Supreme Court allowed third-country removals to continue while it decides, in a case set for argument in December, whether people must get a meaningful chance to object before being sent to a country with which they have no ties. Every new agreement adds to the system the justices are about to review.

What Kingston agreed to, and what it kept out

The two governments signed the memorandum in June, according to the Associated Press, and Jamaica’s foreign and national security ministries released its main terms in a joint statement on Oct. 13. The United States has not agreed to make the document itself public, Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said, according to the AP. What Jamaica has disclosed:

Transit only: people are to pass through Jamaica on the way to their home country or another country willing to receive them.
Volume cap: a maximum of 25 people every two weeks.
Criminal-record bar: no one with a criminal record may transit through Jamaica under the program.
Asylum tripwire: the arrangement can be suspended if 10 people apply to remain in Jamaica through asylum or other humanitarian processes.
Costs and care: the Jamaican government will not pay for the program, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is handling support while people are in the country and their onward travel.

The first group, seven of them women, was taken by bus under police escort from Norman Manley International Airport to an undisclosed location, the AP reported, and no official manifest has been released.

The criminal-record bar is the term most likely to shape who ends up on these flights. The administration has defended third-country removals as a way to deport people with final orders whose home countries will not take them back, including people with criminal convictions. Jamaica’s terms mean that, through this channel at least, only people without records can be sent. The cap also keeps the numbers small. At 25 people every two weeks, Jamaica could take at most about 650 people a year, a calculation from the government’s stated limit. DHS General Counsel James Percival has said about 25,000 people have been deported to third countries so far, Axios reported, and most of them have gone to Mexico, according to the AP.

A transit stop raises a question the courts have not reached

Most of the legal fight over third-country removals has been about the country of arrival: whether a person must be told where he or she is going and given a chance to raise a fear of persecution or torture there. U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston ordered such notice in February. On Sept. 29 the Supreme Court put that order on hold and agreed to hear the case, D.V.D. v. Department of Homeland Security, with the three liberal justices dissenting. “In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

A transit arrangement moves the problem one step down the line. Jamaica is not meant to be the final destination, so the real risk for a person who fears return home lies in where he or she is sent next. The IOM’s role runs through its Assisted Voluntary Return program, the AP reported, a program built on voluntary return. Neither government has said publicly what happens to someone who will not agree to go home and has no other country to go to. That gap, together with the 10-application suspension clause, suggests the arrangement could be tested quickly if several people in early groups ask for protection in Jamaica.

At home, the opposition’s national security spokesperson says Parliament was bypassed, while Johnson Smith has said nothing in the agreement is “prejudicial” to the country, according to the AP.

For people in the United States with final removal orders, the practical point is that the list of possible destinations keeps growing. The AP has reported similar deals with Liberia, Eswatini and Paraguay, and the Supreme Court’s December argument will decide how much notice, if any, comes before a flight. Until then, Jamaica’s published terms offer a detailed public look at how one of these agreements works, and a clear example of a receiving country writing its own limits into one.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

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Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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