On the Proposed Third-Country Nationals (TCN) Agreement
LANDS strongly opposes any Third-Country National (TCN) agreement, confirmed as a signed Memorandum of Understanding with the United States, the details of which are still under negotiation. Whatever its current status, we call for it not to be implemented, and for any version of it to be withdrawn from consideration.
Jamaica stands to lose significantly from this arrangement. We take on real logistical, security, and reputational risks, managing the transit and accommodation of non-Jamaican nationals with no ties to this country. It is Jamaica that will bear the consequences when things go wrong, as they did with Orville Etoria, a Jamaican national detained in Eswatini for over two months without charge under a similar US arrangement. The human rights criticism and reputational fallout from such cases do not attach to Washington. They attach to the country holding the person, in that case they were attached to Eswatini, if similar mistakes occur on our shores they will be attached to us.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated publicly: "We are actively searching for other countries to take people from third countries... We are working with other countries to say, 'We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.'" It seems that Jamaica is one of those countries. This is not a friendly favour, as the Prime Minister characterised it. It is a deliberate recruitment into a programme the US government describes unapologetically as offloading people it considers beneath its own system's concern onto willing partners. We do not accept that characterisation of these individuals. But we note that it is the characterisation held by the government sending them to us, and it raises an urgent question: what legal protections does Jamaica have in place for people the US has already decided it does not want to process, hold, or protect?
This government's foreign policy has been praised, including by its own members, as pragmatic. There is nothing pragmatic about this arrangement. The Prime Minister's suggestion that Jamaica should not think transactionally about a deal that carries real costs is not pragmatism. It is the logic of a junior partner being told not to ask questions. In exchange for our participation, Jamaica receives nothing concrete. There is no economic compensation, no trade concession, no formal commitment of any kind. But we wish to be clear: even if material benefits were offered, they would not justify participation in a system with human rights violations.
We are deeply concerned about the legal foundation of this arrangement. These individuals are not Jamaican nationals. They are not arriving here by choice. What is the legal basis, under Jamaican domestic law or international law, for receiving and holding them here? The MOU itself offers no answer. It relies on vetting "to the extent available and permitted by law," language which acknowledges its own limits. If Jamaica receives these individuals without a clear legal framework governing their status, detention, and rights, we risk being complicit not in transit, but in indefinite extrajudicial holding of people who arrived here involuntarily.
This concern is deepened by a striking inconsistency. This Government ended Cuban medical cooperation in part based on US allegations that the programme constituted human trafficking. Yet it is now prepared to receive foreign nationals transported here without their consent, held in legal limbo, under pressure from the same country that made those allegations. It is hypocritical for the government to simultaneously cite human trafficking concerns to end one arrangement and ignore them to enter another. The Jamaica people deserves an explanation of how those two positions are reconciled.
We are further concerned about how this agreement came to be. The public learned of a signed MOU through a media leak, not a government announcement. Parliament has not been permitted to review the document. Opposition members stated they had no prior knowledge of the agreement, with the Opposition Spokesperson on National Security describing this as "unacceptable" and formally calling for the MOU to be tabled in the House before implementation, stating that to do otherwise would be "blatant contempt to the people of Jamaica." The government's account of who initiated the proposal has shifted repeatedly: the minister said it was a US request; a US Embassy diplomatic note named a Cabinet minister as the originator; the Prime Minister suggested her comments were conflated with a separate skilled- worker discussion; the Information Minister called the diplomatic note a mischaracterisation. Each new statement contradicted or qualified the last. A government accountable to its people does not conduct diplomacy this way, particularly on matters with serious human rights implications.
It is also worth noting that a US federal court ruled in February 2026 that the TCN removal policy is unlawful under US law. The Trump administration is appealing that decision. Jamaica has signed and begun implementing an arrangement whose legal validity in the originating country is itself under active judicial challenge. Parliament was not asked whether Jamaica should proceed in those circumstances. The question was not put. It should have been.
The TCN arrangement is part of a broader US deportation system that international human rights bodies have consistently criticised for aggressive detention practices and outcomes that fall disproportionately on Black and brown migrants. Jamaica, a country that has historically advocated for the rights of smaller nations and marginalised peoples on the international stage, should not lend its name and territory to that system.
Jamaica must not reduce itself to a cog in another country's deportation machinery, nor allow itself to be recruited, as Mr Rubio put it unapologetically, as a destination for those the US has decided it does not want. We call on the Government to prioritise the welfare and reputation of its people over diplomatic convenience. Jamaica's legacy is one of standing with the voiceless. It must not become one of processing and shipping them on behalf of foreign powers.
Sincerely,
Leonardo Grant
Secretary of Policy Coordination