CARICOM probing for clearer TCNs policy picture

Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Philip J. Pierre says the regional bloc will conduct an audit of individual member state policies on the United States’ Third-Country Nationals (TCNs) arrangement before coming to a definitive position on the matter.
Addressing a press briefing to wrap up the 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government in St Lucia yesterday, Pierre said regional heads are concerned about the US’s latest deportation policy.
Jamaica is the latest member state to confirm that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to accept 25 TCNs every two weeks for an unspecified period.
Pierre told journalists that the matter was on the agenda for CARICOM leaders, even as a landmark US federal court ruling struck down the third-country removal policy as unlawful. The decision is being appealed.
“Yes, we did discuss [it]. It’s an issue that is of concern to all of us,” said Pierre.
“We discussed it, and we took a position that we would share some more information among ourselves about what, really, is each island doing. Right now, we are not clear,” he added.
The commitment to audit individual member state policies underscores deep-seated anxieties across CARICOM countries, with widespread anger among Jamaicans in particular over how the deal has been handled.
Last week, more than 500 protesters converged in Cross Roads to register their disagreement with the Andrew Holness administration’s communication on the matter.
The protest, organised by civil society coalitions and backed by the Opposition, highlighted a core grievance that the MOU was quietly signed, without parliamentary debate or public consultation.
Several protesters argued that local oversight had been bypassed to appease Washington.
Despite explicit government assurances that no individual with a serious criminal background will be allowed to transit through Jamaica, citizens remain highly sceptical.
Local fear has been further heightened by a resurfaced social media video of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing TCN deportees as “despicable human beings”.
UNDECIDED
The MOU, first reported on by The Gleaner, has not been made public.
Yesterday, Pierre confirmed that CARICOM had not reached a position on the matter.
“We decided to share some information among ourselves, so we could possibly come out with a more definitive position in the future. But right now, it’s a fact [that] the United States has asked most islands to accept third-country nationals,” said Pierre.
Regional heads, including Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, and Dominica, have defended their participation as “pragmatic steps” to protecting vital diplomatic relations and avoid aggressive US travel or economic sanctions.
Defending its position in a white paper published last week, the Gaston Browne-led government named Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Guyana, and Belize as CARICOM states that have already entered into or publicly acknowledged MOUs with the US regarding TCNs.
The 13-page document noted that TCNs arriving on the island will enter a “legal limbo” because Antigua has no standalone Refugees Act. This means that a TCN who claims asylum immediately triggers the 1951 Refugee Convention protections, turning them into a “charge upon the State”.
If they are stateless or refuse to contact a persecuting home country for a passport, the island is stuck managing them indefinitely with no legal pathway forward.
“If the person expresses fear of return to their country of origin, Antigua and Barbuda’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention (to which it acceded on 7 September 1995) are immediately triggered. The person must be allowed to apply for protection and cannot be returned, including to the United States, if doing so would expose them to persecution. This means that the person would be in Antigua and Barbuda in limbo and would become a charge upon the State,” reads the white paper.
It outlines that after the government signed the non-binding framework in December 2025, the US sought to expand it via “draft operating procedures”.
It states that the Donald Trump administration pushed for a standing monthly pipeline, compressed approval timelines, higher numerical caps, and left funding, legal status, and return responsibilities unresolved.
“In response, Antigua and Barbuda identified material concerns and made clear that no operational arrangement could responsibly proceed unless those concerns were addressed in writing and on terms consistent with the country’s size, capacity, laws, and national interest,” the document indicates.
The country counter-proposed, according to the white paper, that it would take a maximum of 10 individuals for the entire 2026.
Antigua also demanded that the US fully fund all settlement, healthcare and security costs in writing before the departure of TCNs.
The government further argued that full funding, full vetting, clear legal status, and express return responsibility are minimum protective conditions and are not, in themselves, reciprocal benefits.
“If Antigua and Barbuda is to contemplate receiving third-country nationals who are not its nationals, in order to assist the United States with the practical execution of its migration policy, there must also be a clear and commensurate reciprocal benefit to Antigua and Barbuda in the national interest.
“This should include the lifting of any blanket visa restrictions on nationals of Antigua and Barbuda, although Antigua and Barbuda accepts the right of the US to deny visas to any persons who, on an individual basis, it regards an ineligible,” the document reads.
It adds, “Goodwill alone is not sufficient. Nor can vague expectations of favourable treatment elsewhere be regarded as an adequate foundation for a decision of this kind.”
It states that the Antiguan government will proceed, if at all, only on the basis that the country’s national interest is expressly protected in legal, financial, operational, and reciprocal terms, “unless Parliament resolves differently”.
National Security and Peace Minister Dr Horace Chang, in responding recently to questions about Jamaica’s interest in or benefit from the arrangement, said they were “irrelevant”.
“The idea of what we get out of it is not a relevant question. America is one of our strongest bilateral partners. We have [a] multiplicity of arrangements, understandings, exchanges in all areas. It’s not something you discuss. We do this today; we do that for you tomorrow. That’s not a practice of any healthy bilateral relationship,” he said.
kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com