Jamaica Council of Churches demands halt to US third-country migrant negotiations

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) wants the Government to stop negotiating a proposed deal with the United States (US) to take in third-country nationals (TCNs) until the issue undergoes open parliamentary debate and wide public consultation.

In a statement released Monday, the council said it was deeply troubled by what it called a “total lack of transparency” around the TCN memorandum of understanding (MOU). It argued that when major policy is shaped away from public view, it escapes the ethical and democratic scrutiny that citizens deserve.

The group also challenged the reasoning behind the plan, saying several central questions still lack clear answers. “Why are persons being sent to third-party partner countries like Jamaica rather than their country of origin? Wouldn’t direct repatriation to their homeland have made more sense? If the sending authorities harbour genuine, legitimate safety or security concerns about the deportee’s home country, how is sending them to a third country going to help mitigate that situation?” the council questioned.

The JCC demanded a thorough, open account from the Ministry of National Security and Peace and the Office of the Prime Minister. It maintained that moving displaced people from one coastline to another does not address the deeper drivers of regional and global instability; it only shifts the administrative weight elsewhere.

The council also pointed to what it described as a “troubling structural double standard” in how Jamaica handles migration. “For decades, our successive administrations have pleaded a lack of systemic capacity, fiscal room and infrastructural resources to justify the rapid, unceremonious repatriation of spontaneous regional arrivals—most notably our brothers and sisters fleeing the harrowing humanitarian catastrophe in nearby Haiti. We have been told repeatedly that Jamaica cannot absorb the vulnerable at our gates. Yet, when a proposal is brokered with a global superpower, our structural incapacity is suddenly set aside to accommodate a specialised transit apparatus,” the group said.

Stressing that public policy is a sacred trust bound up with human life and dignity, the council warned that when that trust is undermined by opportunism, the poorest and most exposed suffer first. “To turn away the desperate seafaring migrant while opening an official transit pipeline for a superpower’s unwanted populations is to be found fundamentally wanting in the scales of justice. We cannot trade our moral birthright for political expediency or foreign assistance dividends.”

The statement also drew on Hebrew and Christian teaching on refugees, pointing to Amos 2:6, where the Prophet Amos thunders divine judgment against nations precisely because, “they sell the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” and Deuteronomy 23:15-16, which commands: “If a slave has taken refuge with you from their master, do not hand them over. Let them live among you wherever they like… Do not oppress them.”

While recognising that the Government must navigate serious national security demands, economic limits and geopolitical pressure, especially amid forceful international enforcement trends, the council said development goals cannot be pursued by weakening international humanitarian protections or inviting chain refoulement. It cited the 2025 administrative mistake that led to a Jamaican citizen being unlawfully deported to Eswatini.

The Jamaica Council of Churches therefore urged the Andrew Holness-led administration to end negotiations at once and publish the full text and operating rules of the proposed transit framework so the public can examine the contradictions around third-country routing. It further called on the Government to uphold non-refoulement.