Jamaica approves US third-country deportee transit pact as Wheatley corruption row widens

Jamaica signed an agreement with the United States to temporarily receive third-country nationals whom Washington seeks to remove, triggering public controversy after reports that the pact was concluded around 11 June without advance notice to citizens.

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, confirmed the arrangement at a Wednesday news conference and during Parliament later that day, describing it as a United States-initiated request rather than an open-door migration policy. He said transfers would be capped at 25 persons every two weeks, with both governments able to refuse individuals or terminate the agreement. The United States would fund initial accommodation through the International Organisation for Migration, he said, and no one would be held in detention. Deportees could move about the island and apply for asylum through Jamaican courts. Further transfers would pause if ten or more remained beyond 30 days.

Reporting on a United States diplomatic note pointed to Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Audley Marks as having raised a related proposal at a March security conference in Miami. Information Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon said the note mixed separate discussions on skilled migration with the third-country programme. Opposition Leader Mark Golding questioned the legal footing, citing a February United States federal court ruling that found similar arrangements unlawful, and called for parliamentary scrutiny of whether Dr Chang misled lawmakers about who initiated the deal. Academics and Jamaicans for Justice warned of human rights risks and inadequate public consultation.

Calls also intensified for Minister without Portfolio Dr Andrew Wheatley to leave Cabinet after the Integrity Commission tabled a report recommending four charges, including illicit enrichment linked to roughly $164 million in assets the body said he could not satisfactorily explain between 2013 and 2022. Opposition figures, Jamaicans for Justice and the Jamaica Council of Churches urged his removal. Dr Wheatley rejected the findings and told legislators: "I have every intention of protecting my reputation. I am innocent."

In Ontario, David Lindsey of Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew, and Rupert Bell of Old Harbour, St Catherine—both longtime participants in Jamaica's farm work programme—died Thursday in a Norfolk County collision. Labour Minister Pearnel Charles Jr said they were pronounced dead at the scene; Mr Lindsey had been on the programme since 2007 and Mr Bell since 2013, and both arrived for the current season in March. United States ambassador nominee Kari Lake told a Senate hearing on Thursday that countering Chinese influence in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean would be a principal objective if she is confirmed.