The deportee threat

THE THREAT by U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft to act against countries which delay or refuse to take back immigrants convicted of crimes in the United States, could very well have a repercussion here although it is not primarily aimed at Jamaica. The threat followed a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that immigrants could not be jailed indefinitely while they await deportation to another country willing to take them.

There are scores of Jamaicans in detention centres in the USA awaiting deportation or serving time in prison for deportable offences. While Jamaica has never refused to take back its criminal nationals, it has over the years, raised several complaints with the U.S. Government about the bases on which they deport them.

The first relates to the deportation of Jamaican nationals in their 20s, 30s, 40s or older, who emigrated to the United States as infants and developed all their criminal records and associations there. More often than not, when they are deported they no longer have family ties here to provide support as they try to pick up their lives anew. So they end up making new criminal connections or renewing old ones.

The second is that whatever assets a deportee might have accumulated legitimately in the US, invariably he is deported to Jamaica without a penny to his name, so without ties and resources here, he is more prone to lapse into criminal behaviour.

Ashcroft said the ruling had created an emergency situation, and he vowed to ask Secretary of State Colin Powell to stop granting visas to the citizens of countries which refuse to take back their deportees or delay accepting them. While Ashcroft declined to name specific countries, Jamaica could very well be caught up in any mass effort to rid detention centres of criminal immigrants who have served their time.

With the Jamaica Constabulary already blaming deportees for many of the serious crimes committed here, Jamaica could not cope with mass expulsion of its criminal nationals. That would serve only to aggravate our law enforcement problems and maybe, even overwhelm us.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.

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