SCHOLAR, NOT SAVAGE
US accused of ‘ultimate betrayal’ against reformed J’can labelled ‘barbaric’, deported to Africa
Published:Wednesday | July 23, 2025 | 12:54 AMLivern Barrett/Senior Staff
The Jamaican man who was among five “barbaric criminals” deported from the United States (US) to a South African nation earned a bachelor’s degree in prison, was enrolled in a master’s programme, and well on the way to rebuilding his life, a US media report has revealed.
The New York CARIBNEWS identified the Jamaican as Orville Etoria in an op-ed piece published on Tuesday.
Etoria was convicted on May 15, 1997, of murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, according to online records of his 1999 appeal.
The appeal was dismissed and the online records did not provide details of Etoria’s crime.
US Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin disclosed that the Jamaican and four other immigrants who were deported to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini were all convicted criminals and “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back”.
The Jamaican Government has denied that it refused to accept deported citizens.
The New York CARIBNEWS op-ed piece suggested that Etoria spent time at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the infamous maximum security prison based in upstate New York, where he began a trailblazing academic journey before his “ultimate betrayal” by American authorities.
HIGHER EDUCATION
He earned his bachelor’s degree through the Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison and the New York-based Mercy College and later enrolled in a master’s programme at the New York Theological Seminary.
The report said Etoria graduated in 2018 as part of the largest college commencement ever held inside the prison.
“A milestone so significant it was formally recognised and celebrated by Mercy College. When Orville walked that graduation stage, he carried generations with him,” stated the report.
He was granted parole in 2021 – “something hard-won and rare in New York State”, it noted.
“He was rebuilding his life. But recently, the US deported him – not to Jamaica, his home – but to Eswatini. This isn’t enforcement. This is exile. He’s now locked away again – not because he failed, but because he succeeded too quietly,” the report said.
It noted that Etoria’s 2018 graduation was acknowledged and celebrated by educators, public officials, prison administrators, and his peers.
“And yet, despite all that, they labelled him barbaric. This is the ultimate betrayal: to praise a man’s growth while quietly plotting his removal. America celebrated Orville when it needed a good story. Then it discarded him when it no longer did.”