Jamaica in talks to accept third-country deportees from US

Jamaica moved closer to becoming a transit point for migrants with no Jamaican connection as Horace Chang said talks with Washington covered a memorandum of understanding, not a binding agreement. Under the proposal, the island would receive up to 25 people every two weeks, hold no more than 10 at a time, and move them on to another country or their home nation, while excluding people with criminal backgrounds and keeping human rights at the center of the arrangement.

The deal sits inside a wider deportation system the Trump administration has expanded across the Caribbean and Latin America, striking arrangements with several countries, often in exchange for payment. That model appears designed to keep removals moving when the United States cannot or will not send people straight home, while shifting custody and costs to smaller partners tied closely to Washington. Reuters cited El Salvador as the best-known example, where more than 200 Venezuelans were held in an anti-terrorism prison for four months, and AP said more than 19,000 people have been sent to third countries under secretive agreements.

For Jamaica, the immediate questions are concrete: where deportees would be housed, what protections they would have, and how long they could remain in limbo while travel is arranged. Chang said they would not be placed in detention, compensation was still being negotiated, and no transfers would begin until both sides agreed on operating procedures. He also said reports that the arrangement could cover as many as 10,000 deportees did not reflect an agreed quota.

The political fallout had already begun at home. The opposition People's National Party warned that the plan could strain internal security, Jamaica's international standing and its fragile social infrastructure, while Chang described the process as a managed transit arrangement for foreign nationals rather than permanent settlement. Reuters said Jamaica had studied similar arrangements in Belize, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis, a sign that Washington is pushing deportation logistics outward, country by country, beyond its own borders.