News
October 25 2026
A second chance at home
6
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Alvin McLean, executive director of the Family Unification & Resettlement Initiative (FURI), speaks with The Sunday Gleaner on FURI’s office grounds in Kingston last week. Photo - Antoine Lodge/Photographer
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Alvin McLean, executive director of the Family Unification & Resettlement Initiative (FURI), speaks with The Sunday Gleaner on FURI’s office grounds in Kingston last week. Photo - Antoine Lodge/Photographer
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A deportee is led away after arriving on a flight from the United States in 2025. Photo - Antoine Lodge/Photographer
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Jamaican deportees arrive at Norman Manley International Airport on February 27, 2025. Photo - File
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Alvin McLean ... FURI helped me in so many ways. Photo - Antoine Lodge/Photographer
When Paul Lawrence stepped off the aircraft that brought him back to Jamaica more than two decades ago, the weight of the moment overwhelmed him, and he burst into tears. Although the island was his birthplace, it felt like a foreign land. He and his entire family had migrated to the United States (US) when he was just six years old. His first return was as a deportee, after he spent four and a half years in an American prison on drug charges. “I was crying when I drove through the streets and saw Kingston,” he said.
