Norris R. McDonald  |  Healthcare vs handcuffs: Jamaica's ‘licky-licky’ US prisoner pact

"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots."--- Marcus Mosiah Garvey

There are moments in a nation's history when public policy ceases to be routine housekeeping and becomes an iron test of national moral character and political leadership. Jamaica's reported willingness to accept US immigration detainees is one such moment.

Supporters may boast that such an arrangement reflects strong relations between Kingston and Washington. Some may even argue that any financial compensation would help plug holes in the IMF-constrained Budget. 

What political naivety!

This narrow calculation ignores a deeper question that every society must eventually confront: should a nation literally sell its soul to profit from human misery? 

In the end, economics alone cannot answer questions that touch upon human dignity, justice and national self-respect.

THE AMERICAN PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Beneath the niceties of diplomatic language lies a troubling reality. If Jamaica takes in US immigration detainees, the country can become branded internationally as a pariah, like El Salvador, who has facilitated, as the evidence shows, American unlawful detention and human-rights abuse of immigrants. 

The United States today operates the largest incarceration system in the world, with nearly two million people behind bars. Billions of dollars are spent annually on prisons and detention centres. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation programme has put greater strain on America’s vast network of prisons. That’s why there is this urgent need to seek foreign prison warders.   

Under Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, families have been torn apart, including many within the legal process who are seeking US naturalisation and asylum petitions. Racially profiling has a been critical factor driving the roundup of immigrants. 

SHOULD JAMAICA PROFIT FROM HUMAN MISERY?

Jamaica, therefore, risks becoming an offshore extension of what many regard as a racist and punitive American immigration system.  

For many Jamaicans living in the United States, the issue is not abstract. Families are experiencing anguish as relatives are detained after routine immigration hearings or find their legal status suddenly revoked. Their stories reflect fear, uncertainty, and emotional pain. 

Jamaicans have complained of mistreatment at Florida detention centres, including the infamous ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.

Yet, despite legal challenges and public criticism, Washington continues to seek ways to go around the laws that forbid mistreatment of immigrants and requires them to have their day in court.  

These are some of the key issues behind the US foreign prison warehousing programme. 

CUBAN HEALTHCARE VERSUS AMERICAN HANDCUFFS

The contradiction becomes even more glaring when we look at the Government’s foreign policy priorities. The government quickly ended medical cooperation with Cuba to please ‘backra massa’.

Under pressure from the United States, Jamaica expelled Cuban doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals who had been helping to fill chronic staffing gaps in overstretched hospitals and rural clinics. Their departure removed a crucial lifeline for many communities and further burdened a dysfunctional healthcare system already struggling with severe workforce shortages.

In contrast, Jamaica is embracing a dehumanising thing — swap Cuban healthcare cooperation for American handcuffs. 

The contrast exposes the larger issue. Jamaica is being nudged away from partnerships rooted in care, public health, and human development and towards arrangements centred on confinement, punishment, and control. One model expands human possibilities; the other manages human restriction.

WHAT KIND OF FOREIGN POLICY?

The irony is painful. Under American imperialist pressure, Jamaica stepped back from utilising Cuban medical expertise. Yet some now appear willing to embrace the prospect of earning "dunza" by warehousing abused and vulnerable immigrants. 

At its core, this debate explores what kind of international partnerships Jamaica should pursue.

Jamaica faces two competing models of foreign policy engagement. The one we had with Cuba, that prioritised healthcare, development, and human advancement. The other, with America,  that requires dependency, political servitude and now; demands the detention, handcuffs, imprisonment of the hopeless and rejected foreigners from America’s shore.  

Is this right? What do you think? 

Whether you agree with me or not, the moral dimensions cannot be ignored. 

Migrants, asylum seekers, workers, and families navigating complex legal circumstances deserve dignity and due process. Human beings should not be shipped abroad merely because another country seeks convenient solutions to its own political problems.

Many Americans themselves reject policies they regard as attacks on immigrant rights and due process. 

Why, then, should Jamaica enthusiastically embrace god- king Trump’s inhumane failed immigration mass deportation plan which many white Americans — Democrats and Republicans  — now reject? 

HISTORY LESSONS FROM JAMAICA'S ‘FAUSTIAN PACT’

History offers many warnings about short-term gains that conceal long-term costs.

My dear friends, The legend of Faust tells of a bargain with the devil, promising immediate rewards while demanding a deeper sacrifice. The story endures because it reflects temptations confronting nations and leaders throughout history. Political expediency often delivers immediate benefits while quietly extracting a far greater price later.

These moral questions resonate because Jamaica's history is inseparable from struggles against slavery, colonial domination, racial hierarchy, and external control.

Those struggles shaped a national identity that values freedom and resists exploitation. A people born out of resistance should be especially cautious about becoming instruments in oppressive imperialist systems that violate the rights and dignity of people hustling to put food on their table.

Imagine this… Michael Manley once famously said about Jamaica’s morals and dignity: “We are not for sale.”

Perhaps now the question is,  “How much?”

Ultimately, this debate is about more than immigration policy or budgetary calculations. It touches sovereignty, national identity, and the values that ought to guide public decision-making.

In the final analysis, the challenge is not simply to calculate the monetary benefits of any agreement. It is to determine whether that agreement aligns with the kind of nation Jamaica aspires to be — and the ultimate price that may one day be paid for such misadventures. Nations, like individuals, eventually become what they repeatedly choose to serve.

The real question, therefore, is not how much money Jamaica might receive. The deeper question is what Jamaica becomes as it continually prostrates itself for the American master's ‘chicken bones’.

That is the bitta truth.

Norris R. McDonald is an author, economic journalist, political analyst and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.