PNP Women demand government answers on Jamaica's third-country deportation agreement

The People's National Party Women's Movement is pressing the government to explain why Jamaica has agreed to take part in a United States programme that sends deported third-country nationals to partner nations when they refuse to return to their countries of origin.

Patricia Duncan Sutherland, president of PNP Women, said her organisation's concerns have grown since US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in 2025 that the Trump administration was pursuing third-party agreements to remove what he described as highly violent criminals and sex offenders from American soil.

Rubio said Washington was seeking countries willing to receive people he described as, and I quote, "perverts, pedophiles, and child rapists, some of the most despicable human beings." He also named Jamaica among roughly 20 nations that have signed third-country national agreements tied to US border enforcement.

Under those arrangements, individuals in the United States unlawfully who will not go back to their home countries may instead be sent to designated safe third countries. Rubio said that when people are told they could be transferred to such a destination, many choose to return home, which he said helps enforce US immigration law in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

US Vice President J.D. Vance has also argued that governments should protect their borders from outsiders. He said, "All over the West, and it's kind of crazy, is this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in millions and millions of unvetted people and drop them in your neighborhoods and we simply reject that idea. It's okay to want to defend your culture. It's okay to want to live in a safe neighborhood. It's okay to want your job to go to yourself and your neighbors and not to a stranger who you don't even know."

The opposition women's group said the administration owes Jamaicans a clear account of why the island would serve as a destination under the scheme. Duncan Sutherland insisted that partial responses are insufficient. She said, "Vague statements and partial answers are not good enough. The safety of Jamaican women and children must come first and the government must prove in words and action that the safety of Jamaican women and children is paramount."