Portland police hold 16 Haitian migrants after pre-dawn coastal landing

A contributed image from July 10, 2023 captures Haitian migrants resting on a Portland beach after reaching Jamaican shores, wet and without food.

Officers in West Portland placed more than a dozen Haitians under arrest on Sunday morning, following reports that the party had reached land along the parish's northern shore shortly after midnight. Authorities suspect the group came ashore close to Hope Bay or St Margaret's Bay.

Police sources identify the detainees as ten adult men, four adult women, and two children. They remain at the Port Antonio Police Station, where officials plan to carry out immigration screening and medical checks.

The detention followed calls from residents who noticed suspicious movement on a western Portland beach, where people were seen leaving a boat. The craft is said to have touched down without detection, and investigators are checking whether others may have slipped away before police got there.

This landing fits a wider trend of Haitian migrants reaching Jamaica's northern and eastern coasts in recent years, as deepening hardship in Haiti keeps pushing people toward dangerous crossings in the Caribbean. Earlier incidents have seen groups picked up by security forces; some were sent back, while others filed asylum applications.

The case arrives as national conversation sharpens over a disputed plan for Jamaica to temporarily take in non-Jamaican third-country nationals whom the United States wants to deport.

Further information is expected.