17 deportees arrive in Kingston from UK

There were brisk movements in the precincts of Harman Barracks police outfit on Tuesday afternoon as 17 deportees were escorted there for processing.

They had earlier arrived at Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport aboard a charter flight from the United Kingdom.

Another 33 Jamaicans were expected to be on the deportation flight, but their repatriation was halted by a last-minute Court of Appeal ruling.

The court ruled that it must be satisfied that while in detention, the deportees were provided with functioning cell phone SIM cards before February 3.

This means they would have been able to contact their lawyers.

At Harman Barracks, relatives of the deportees took up position as they waited for their loved ones.

Among them were Ann-Marie Williams whose son was sent back home.

Majority of the other deportees’ families declined to speak on camera.

However, Ricardo Samuels and his mother, said they would be supporting their relative, a convicted drug offender, who has been deported after 20 years in the UK.

Meanwhile, like she has done for the past six years, Tasha Shirley was at Harman Barracks today to provide phone calls and other forms of assistance to the deported migrants.

She said she does this year after year out of care for the Jamaicans returning home.

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