Buchanan presses Parliament to debate U.S. migrant transit deal and asylum gaps

Opposition Member of Parliament Isat Buchanan used a parliamentary debate on republican reform to challenge the government over a memorandum of understanding with the United States under which Jamaica would receive and temporarily hold third-country nationals removed from American soil while they await transfer to a final destination.

Buchanan said the deputy prime minister has told the country that cabinet approved the arrangement and that it was signed on 10 June. Washington would pay for each person's initial stay, with capacity for as many as 25 individuals every fortnight. Panama, Costa Rica, Belize, Antigua, St Kitts and Barbados have entered similar agreements. He argued the step is profound for a small nation yet has not been brought before the House for debate.

Government safeguards, he acknowledged, include Jamaica's right to refuse any individual, either party's ability to end the agreement at short notice, health screening, identity verification, criminal record checks and National Intelligence Bureau clearance, with no acceptance of persons holding criminal records. Such assurances are welcome, Buchanan said, but Parliament exists to test promises against practice. He asked who reviews a refusal, on what criteria, and what becomes of a person received here who cannot move on.

The justice minister, he noted, has conceded that those who elect to remain must apply to the courts for asylum. International reporting the minister dismissed, Buchanan said, describes a country with no clear procedure for granting asylum or refugee status and no consistent system to protect refugees, with cases handled administratively one by one and no legislation in place.

The pressure was visible this week when, on Monday, 17 Haitian nationals—10 men, four women and three children—came ashore at Passley Gardens in Port Antonio in his constituency and were taken into custody for health and immigration processing, their future uncertain as he spoke.

Buchanan asked how Jamaica would meet such arrivals with consistent due process and plain humanity if it is preparing U.S.-funded screening, oversight and accommodation for up to 25 persons transferred every fortnight. A nation's character, he argued, is revealed not in agreements signed in comfortable rooms but in how it treats frightened strangers who arrive unannounced. The matter belongs in parliamentary debate, he said, and not only in press briefings.