Orville Taylor | MOU-vement of ‘deportees’

Some things are too critical for details to be filled in by speculation. Facts are not inconvenient and are not to be modified by imagination or for any other purpose.

There is not enough information or clarity regarding a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the US and Jamaica to home, either temporarily or otherwise in Jamaica, persons, whom the Americans have decided are no longer welcome. 

The number 10,000 hits like a Mike Tyson overhand right. Unseen, unanticipated and dangerous.

Reports from our Gleaner reporter were that a high-placed member of the cabinet, initiated a conversation with the Americans to import citizens from other nations. 

Now, this is disputed, because the Jamaican government stated that it was the Americans, being in a friendly cooperative relationship, who brought it to us, and we acquiesced.

Further, Minister of National Security and Peace, Dr Horace Chang, rubbished that large number and even expressed complete ignorance of the figure. A number of a maximum of 25 persons was his corrected figure.

This brings to mind, a decision fraught with contradictions and controversy, a decade or so ago, when the then Minister of National Security, Peter Bunting, was in a position to address a request by the British government to assist in the building of a correctional cacility for Jamaican prisoners, who were either convicted or detained in the UK. This caused massive outrage in the populace on the whole, and at the end of the day, it was an idea that had to be shelved.

Any kind of arrangement, which involves the acceptance of nationals from any other country, is always going to raise many questions and dig deep into scabs among core Jamaicans. 

Deportees are a very noisome issue for us. Even where it comes to our own citizens, there is a deep feeling that the ‘exporting’ countries ought to keep certain categories of ‘offenders’ because they were socialised by that society. 

Indeed, there are multiple cases, where individuals, having been living in the metropolitan countries since infancy, with no knowledge of Jamaica and no close relatives, being extracted and sent ‘home’.

Frequently humanitarian criticisms have surrounded the extrication of not only these persons, clearly the product of the host country, but even those who have risked their lives in the military but somehow, never became citizens, have found themselves in an unfamiliar place.

As stated in earlier columns, as unfair as some cases might seem, every country has an inalienable right to determine who enters or remains within its borders. 

This right is not only regarding the country that removes non nationals, but importantly, any to which those deported persons are likely to be sent.

To the best of my knowledge, and that of lawyers with whom I have consulted, there is no obligation to allow anyone not born here, to disembark from any vessel.

As a matter of fact, I believe that it is possible that, if an individual, is stripped of his birth citizenship, due to his violating some cardinal principle or law, his birthplace can prevent him from returning home.

If my understanding of history is correct there have been myriad cases of citizens bring exiled, either directly or by refusal to renew passports. Black America Legend WEB Dubois is one such case.

If the initial account is indeed a falsehood, instead of hard facts; then the irresponsibility of anyone who leaked their own version of the truth must be addressed. Given the sensitivity of the matter, and the likely groundswell of objections, it certainly will raise, any mischief caused by misleading the public, cannot be ignored.

Since the MOU is not yet public knowledge, let us see where the truth lies.

Still, if we are to take the security minister at his word and accept that there is a cap of 25 warm bodies; the worrisome question is why?

True, the US is our friendly neighbour... most of the time; but the revised Monroe Doctrine, really does not give too much wriggle room, when Uncle Sam wants something that we might be fundamentally opposed to.

Whether it was an offer or request by the Americans, or a willing unsolicited suggestion to our asymmetric partners by our government, and whether it is 25 or 2.5 foreign humans, it will be of discomfort to many.

All the details are not known. But we are told that there is no permanent dumping of any foreigner here, under the agreement. For want of a better term, we are agreeing to be a sort of ‘entrepot’ as the Americans work out the process for them to ultimately be expatriated to a final destination. 

It might seem innocuous on the surface, but the movement of humans across international borders, to places to which they might not wish to go, conjures up all kinds of images regarding UN conventions and trafficking and even our own Holocaust, the transatlantic slave trade.

If the ‘guests’ are going to be ‘free roaming’: how will they be monitored? And if they have not committed any offence in Jamaica, can we lawfully detain them?

It certainly does not help that the information suggests that the deported persons are not criminal offenders. 

While that might assuage some concerned Jamaicans that we are not having the worst of the worst on our soils, this further begs the question, “If they are so harmless; why not America just keep them?”

Then, despite the explanations, that we are comparing lychees and guineps, we have not given much leniency to our CARICOM citizens from Haiti. 

Few know that during the period of our enslavement, Haiti made no treaty to return our escaped Africans, who landed there. 

It is not a small matter; we desperately need consensus on this.

Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.