Audrey Marks Addresses Deportee Deal; Opposition Questions Her Remarks

Cabinet Minister Audrey Marks is continuing to defend the government's position on the controversial deport deal after allegations that she proposed the agreement to the United States.

 

The former US ambassador used a recent JIS interview to reject what she described

as misinformation being spread by the media, but her explanation has done little to quiet the debate with the opposition now challenging several of the claims she made in the interview.

 

Minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister and Former Ambassador to the United States Audrey Marks in an interview with Jamaica Information Service CEO Giovani Dennis said, “That's a clear United States policy. Not anything at all to do with me. I could not dictate to the US anything about their third-country nationals program.”

 

The controversy has been brewing for weeks with Marks at the epicentre of it after claims she was the one who proposed the third-country nationals agreement. This isn't the first time the minister has addressed the issue in recent days. But in this latest interview, she offered her most detailed defence yet, seeking to dispel what she describes as misinformation surrounding the deal.

 

“Because this was an orchestrated misinformation plan, the very same day and in the continuing days what we have seen pushed from various bloggers, YouTubers, all kinds of person, third-country nationals with the United States to take criminals into Jamaica. That is not so, and that's the first thing we must clarify and put an end to.”

 

She explained that the proposal she put forward at the US conference in March this year was for a skilled workers program, not a deportation deal.

 

“With my team at the embassy, we came up with a proposal where we could cooperate, and the first area would be on expanding the amount of Jamaican seasonal workers. Right now, the cap is about 20,000 and we'll be proposing more like 200,000. And so, my thinking was how do we get ahead of this situation and propose to the US that we can help. We can help because we have an established legal system of bringing workers into the country.”

 

But instead of ending the week's long debate, the minister's comments have triggered fresh criticism from the opposition. This was opposition senator Cleveland Tomlinson at a PNP divisional conference in Admiral Town in Kingston on Sunday.

 

Tomlinson said, “She said that she went overseas to work on a deal to attract skilled workers to Jamaica. All right. That conference was a conference to deal with issue of drug cartels. I don't know how you go to a conference to deal with national security issues and drug cartel issues and you end up proposing a deal about skilled migration and attracting skilled workers to Jamaica. It pours doubt on the accuracy of that story from Audrey Marks and the government.”

 

Tomlinson went further.

 

“This situation about the deportee deal was not made up by The Gleaner ...or Jamaicans talking about it. The Gleaner received a diplomatic note from the US embassy. It mean seh somebody ah tell lie pon her… talk to the US Embassy because the Gleaner reporting what they have seen in the diplomatic note.”