Editorial | Rethink TCN secrecy

There may indeed be nothing to hide, or that is being hidden, in Jamaica’s third-country national (TCN) agreement with the United States. In which case, there is, or ought to be, no basis for keeping it secret.

Neither is it enough merely to say, or imply, as Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith did last week, that the Americans want the memorandum of understanding (MOU) to remain concealed and that Jamaicans should take her word about the efficacy and relative harmlessness of the arrangement.

She therefore appealed to Jamaicans to take her, and the Government, at their word not only that they have acted in good faith, but also regarding the efficacy and general harmlessness of the TCN arrangement.

“I give you every assurance as well that we have shared all the relevant and material matters and provisions in relation to” the MOU, she said.

“So there is nothing being hidden per se but, as you would note, even under ATI (Jamaica’s Access to Information legislation), bilateral agreements, security agreements and arrangements that are sensitive to relations between countries … are treated differently from other agreements,” the minister added.

That having been said, the questions that now arise are which of the categories outlined by the minister does the MOU fall into: security, or “sensitive to relations”, and why?

Indeed, it would be nonsense to argue that, because this is a bilateral agreement, the MOU falls within the category of matters on which the ATI Act imposes restrictions. Further, having made a case that there is nothing particularly secret in the deal, and that all its relevant provisions were previously verbally disclosed, it should have been easy to insist to the United States that it was in everyone’s interest to publish the text of the agreement, even with limited redactions.

WEAKENS PUBLIC TRUST

Failure to do so, especially in a context where it means a retreat from previous pledges, and given the controversy that has surrounded the MOU, further weakens public trust in the institutions of the State, an already scarce commodity that the Jamaican authorities must husband with care.

Context is always important, especially with respect to this matter. It is a globally controversial fact that the United States under Donald Trump has entered into agreements with at least 35 countries, mainly in the Global South, to partially outsource elements of its programme for the accelerated deportation of presumed illegal immigrants and, in some cases, asylum seekers. Few people doubt that financial inducements and American muscle have been critical in countries acquiescing to these pacts.

Under the arrangements, the Americans will deport people to countries other than their own (third countries), supposedly as transit points to their home states. A broadly similar scheme by Britain to relocate unauthorised asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing and resettlement was, in 2023, struck down as illegal by the UK Supreme Court.

When it emerged in June that Jamaica was negotiating a TCN agreement with the US, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness asserted that, having been approached, Jamaica was negotiating with the United States on its own volition and without duress.

The agreement would respect people’s rights in accordance with international humanitarian law and provide for the United Nations-related body, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), to manage the local housing and final repatriation of the “deportees” to their home countries. It was also announced that no more than 25 TCNs would come to Jamaica at a time, and that the agreement would either be paused or halted if 10 or more of the ‘deportees’ requested asylum in Jamaica. Kingston would follow domestic provisions and its obligations under international law in the event of such requests.

COMB THE FINE PRINT

But, as the idiom goes, the devil is always in the details, which is why many people wish to comb the fine print of the MOU. That is why Jamaicans welcomed pledges by the national security and information ministers, Horace Chang and Dana Morris Dixon, respectively, that it would be published once the negotiations were finalised.

“Yes, the MOU will be made public,” Dr Morris Dixon told the government’s Jamaica Information Service (JIS) in a June interview. “I expect that in a matter of days, if it has not yet been made public.”

The Government has made a U-turn on that undertaking, which, judging from the comments of Minister Johnson Smith, it was not inclined to do, but felt it had to accede to the US demand.

While appreciating that Jamaica has to carefully navigate and sometimes make concessions to a powerful neighbour, this newspaper can hardly conceive of anything in this agreement being so sensitive or having such serious security implications that either Washington or Kingston would wish to keep it secret.

Jamaica should therefore re-engage the United States on the matter. In the meantime, Kingston should publish its agreement with the IOM so that domestic stakeholders can be satisfied that it will not be subject to the same controversies and criticisms from rights groups that the IOM has faced with respect to its TCN arrangements in some African countries.

Jamaica should also take inspiration from Antigua and Barbuda, which is about to restart negotiations with the US on a TCN agreement after a hiatus of several months. Several weeks ago, in a coup for transparency, the St John’s government published a white paper on the sticking points of the agreement while respectfully indicating its negotiating red lines.