Jamaica to facilitate transit of migrants under US agreement

Ja­maica has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the Unit­ed States that will al­low third-coun­try na­tion­als (TC­Ns) trans­ferred from the US to tran­sit through the is­land on their way to a fi­nal des­ti­na­tion, in­clud­ing their home coun­tries.

Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Peace, Dr Ho­race Chang, said the agree­ment re­ceived Cab­i­net ap­proval and was signed on June 10 fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions in­volv­ing the Min­istries of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Peace, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Cham­bers.

Speak­ing at a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing on Wednes­day, Chang said the arrange­ment does not pro­vide for in­di­vid­u­als to be set­tled per­ma­nent­ly in Ja­maica.

“The agreed quo­ta is for 25 in­di­vid­u­als to be fa­cil­i­tat­ed every two weeks for tran­sit through Ja­maica to a third ter­ri­to­ry, in­clud­ing their home coun­tries,” he said.

“At no time will the num­ber ex­ceed 25, be­cause we have the right to refuse any­one at any time and both par­ties can ter­mi­nate the en­tire agree­ment with­out any long-term no­tice,” Chang added.

He said ne­go­ti­a­tions on the op­er­a­tional guide­lines are con­tin­u­ing, but not­ed that the Unit­ed States will cov­er the cost of the in­di­vid­u­als’ ini­tial stay in Ja­maica.

Ac­cord­ing to Chang, per­sons who de­cide to re­main in Ja­maica would be re­quired to ap­ply to the courts for asy­lum.

“If they get asy­lum sta­tus, we re­tain them, if they don’t, we send them home,” he said.

The min­is­ter said the gov­ern­ment is work­ing with the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) to se­cure suit­able ac­com­mo­da­tion for in­di­vid­u­als ac­cept­ed un­der the arrange­ment and stressed that ar­rivals will not be­gin un­til op­er­a­tional de­tails are fi­nalised.

A state­ment is­sued by the min­istry said the op­er­a­tional guide­lines will es­tab­lish safe­guards for im­ple­men­ta­tion, in­clud­ing screen­ing, ver­i­fi­ca­tion, over­sight mech­a­nisms and sus­pen­sion pro­vi­sions.

Chang said Ja­maica would re­tain the au­thor­i­ty to re­ject any in­di­vid­ual pro­posed for trans­fer and that health screen­ing, iden­ti­ty ver­i­fi­ca­tion, crim­i­nal record checks and clear­ance from the Na­tion­al In­tel­li­gence Bu­reau (NIB) would be re­quired be­fore ac­cep­tance.

“In­di­vid­u­als with crim­i­nal an­tecedents will not be ac­cept­ed un­der this arrange­ment, as Ja­maica’s se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions re­main para­mount,” he said.

Chang said the agree­ment would re­main in ef­fect as long as there is a need or un­til con­di­tions for its ter­mi­na­tion, as out­lined in the MOU, are met.

Sim­i­lar agree­ments have al­ready been con­clud­ed be­tween the Unit­ed States and Pana­ma, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Be­lize, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, St Kitts and Nevis, and Bar­ba­dos. —KINGSTON, Ja­maica (CMC)