Holness: Public alarm over US deportee deal ‘almost ridiculous'; vows no dumping of undesirables on Jamaica

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness says no one is seeking to "dump" undesirable persons on Jamaica as part of a controversial deportation deal with the United States, and public panic surrounding the pact is almost "ridiculous". 

"I find it, the panic around it, it’s almost to the point of being ridiculous, honestly," Holness on Nationwide Radio with Cliff Hughes on Monday. "I see people WhatsApping me and sending me messages, ‘why would we do this to our country?’ I say, ‘please sit and think carefully about what you're saying’. We're not doing anything that 28 other countries, including within this region, have done."

Holness pushed back against the wave of criticism that has engulfed his administration since The Gleaner revealed last Tuesday, the existence of an arrangement for Jamaica to temporary accept third-country nationals (TCNs) from the US in batches of 25 on a fortnightly basis.

The prime minister also rejected suggestions that Jamaica had been coerced into the deal or that his administration had been slow to agree under pressure from Washington. "[Were] our hands forced? Were we coerced? Absolutely not," Holness said.

"You have in me, in my government, a prime minister and ministers who stand up for you, who seek to get the best deals for you."

Holness added: “The United States has asked countries that it considers its friends to assist them in managing their immigration challenges. Who are we as Jamaicans? Are we part of the global system? Are we a friend of the United States? Are were looking to the United States to assist with things? Do we only assist in exchange for something? Is the relationship always transactional?”

He said Jamaicans have to abandon 1970s notions of operating in the world, adding that "we are using our foreign policy for our economic and social development". 

'I urge Jamaicans to put away the notion of thinking about our relationships only in the prism of the 70s and 80s. Now is a different time."

Third-country national deals, that the US has struck with several countries, have emerged as a controversial pillar of the Trump administration's sweeping immigration crackdown, providing Washington with a mechanism to remove individuals to countries other than their own. 

Prime Minister Holness said the government had been “very deliberate" in weighing the Jamaican public's sensitivities about the arrangement. "We considered carefully, because we understand the Jamaican public, the Jamaican psyche, and how Miss Mattie in northeast Manchester is going to feel it as if the US is coming to dump unwanted persons in our country to create a problem for us," he said. 

"The issue is far more than that, and deeper than that; And nobody's looking to dump. Nobody's looking to create a problem."

Holness also addressed why the deal was not disclosed to the public before it surfaced through The Gleaner’s news report, arguing that bilateral negotiations are by their nature conducted in private until a final agreement is concluded and signed. 

"You can't come until you are finished with all the negotiations, everything is signed and done," he said, adding that a press conference would have followed once the operational details were finalised. "You believe that we would have done this in secret, a plane landing with 25 people? It would be all over the news."

He noted that the MOU, though signed, remains incomplete. "Though we have signed the MOU, it is not yet implemented. It's not complete because the operationalisation is not complete," he said.

Holness also noted that Opposition Leader Mark Golding has not said Jamaica should not have entered the deal. 

Golding said the deal should not have come to the public through a news report and that he would have been cautious about signing up because of legal challenges to the arrangement in courts in the United States. 

The PNP Women's Movement, trade union leaders and civil society organisations have all demanded the government explain why Jamaica would participate in an arrangement that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described in April 2025 as involving "some of the most despicable human beings." 

Rubio said Washington was "actively searching for other countries" to receive persons it characterised as "perverts, paedophiles and child rapists."

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, who signed the deal, has said the arrangement excludes persons with criminal convictions, unaccompanied minors and Jamaican nationals, and that the entire operation will be managed by the International Organization for Migration, fully funded by the United States. 

He said further transfers would be paused if ten or more TCNs remain in Jamaica beyond thirty days.

The controversy has also been sharpened by a diplomatic note from the US Embassy in Kingston identifying Cabinet Minister Audrey Marks as the official who proposed the deal, at a security summit in Miami on March 5. 

But both Holness and Information Minister Dr Dana Morris Dixon said that note "conflated" discussions about a separate skilled-worker arrangement that contemplated 10,000 participants. 

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