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Friday, July 4, 2025

Human rights groups want Jamaica to suspend deportation of illegal Haitian migrants

by

268 days ago
20241009
Illegal Haitian migrants (Photo courtesy CMC)

Illegal Haitian migrants (Photo courtesy CMC)

Hu­man rights groups are call­ing on the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment to heed the call from the Unit­ed Na­tions Refugee Agency to sus­pend the forced de­por­ta­tion of il­le­gal Hait­ian mi­grants.

In a joint state­ment, Stand Up for Ja­maica (SUFJ) and Ja­maicans for Jus­tice (JFJ) said they were al­so urg­ing the An­drew Hol­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion to launch a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the treat­ment of Hait­ian mi­grants and asy­lum seek­ers in Ja­maica.

They said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should ex­am­ine whether process­es to de­ter­mine the sta­tus of the Haitians are in line with those de­tailed in Ja­maica’s Refugee Pol­i­cy, call­ing al­so for a probe in­to re­ports of abuse and un­nec­es­sary or ar­bi­trary de­ten­tion.

Ja­maica de­port­ed 20 Haitians who had il­le­gal­ly land­ed in Kens­ing­ton, Port­land, on Sat­ur­day. The de­por­ta­tion is the lat­est by the au­thor­i­ties here of Hait­ian na­tion­als who are flee­ing the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try that has been deal­ing with crim­i­nal gangs that have tak­en over the ma­jor­i­ty of the cap­i­tal since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se in Ju­ly 2021.

De­spite the pres­ence of a Kenya-led Unit­ed Na­tions backed Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion, the gangs have con­tin­ued their crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing rape and mur­der. Last week, one gang was re­port­ed to have killed at least 70 peo­ple. To de­port the Haitians, not­ing “We are see­ing once again where Haitians seek­ing refugee sta­tus are be­ing de­nied [the] right to refugee sta­tus and have their ap­pli­ca­tions du­ly processed”.

They have al­so made ref­er­ence to a state­ment by at­tor­ney Ma­lene Al­leyne, the head of Free­dom Imag­i­nar­ies, who was de­nied ac­cess to vis­it the Haitians.

“These per­sons now join a pool of over 130 Haitians who have sought asy­lum since Ju­ly 2023, most of whom have al­ready been ex­pelled from Ja­maica with­out be­ing grant­ed ac­cess to asy­lum pro­ce­dures or le­gal coun­sel. The con­tin­ued un­der­min­ing [of] Haitians’ le­gal right to an at­tor­ney and due process are fla­grant vi­o­la­tions.

“The lack of ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and im­me­di­ate in­sti­tu­tion of crim­i­nal charges makes it near­ly im­pos­si­ble for per­sons to make their in­ten­tion to seek refugee sta­tus, as pro­vid­ed for un­der Ja­maica’s refugee pol­i­cy of 2009, known.”

The two hu­man rights groups say that in some in­stances the Haitians have been charged with il­le­gal en­try.

“Treat­ed as crim­i­nals with­out any ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing; and de­spite flee­ing vi­o­lence, hunger, and in­sta­bil­i­ty. They de­serve prop­er as­sess­ments to de­ter­mine their refugee sta­tus rather than au­to­mat­ic crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion by Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties.”

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Oct 9, CMC –

CMC/ag/ir/2024

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