Editorial | Why say no to rendition

This newspaper accepts on its face Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith’s assertion that Jamaica has not declined to take back any of its citizens being deported from the United States, regardless of their backgrounds.

This a position to which Ms Johnson Smith, in May, pledged the Andrew Holness administration, as the United States accelerated its rounding-up and deportation of undocumented immigrants, as well as non-citizens with criminal convictions. To do otherwise would be illegal, for it is a constitutional obligation of the Jamaican state to accept and accommodate all of its citizens within its national borders.

In that regard, The Gleaner expects that Ms Johnson Smith will not only robustly pursue America’s announced rendition of one of the island’s presumed citizens to the southern African country of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), and, if true, facilitate any desire by that person to seek redress against the United States and Eswatini.

Importantly, too, if the person is indeed Jamaican, Ms Johnson Smith must get to the bottom of how America’s Homeland Security department came by the mistaken belief that Kingston, contrary to publicly declared policy, was unwilling to repatriate a citizen. Such an error, even for Donald Trump’s administration, seems extraordinary, given that the Americans, before they acted, would be expected to contact Jamaica’s diplomatic mission in Washington, as well as the national security and foreign affairs ministries in Kingston.

Moreover, it is believed that Jamaica’s recently appointed ambassador to the United States, Major General Antony Anderson, received the assignment because of his background in crime and security, which, before President Trump’s tariff wars, was expected to be the critical focus of US-Jamaica relations. Major General Anderson was a former head of the Jamaica Defence Force as well as head of the police force.

RENDITIONED

On Wednesday night, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at Homeland Security posted on X, the social media platform, that a Jamaican murder convict, who was sentenced to 25 years, was among five criminals renditioned to Eswatini because they were “so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back”.

While Ms McLaughlin’s post included a photograph of the presumed Jamaican, there was no more information on him other than he was also jailed for robbery (six years) and firearm possession (six months).

It is a reasonable assumption in the circumstances that the individual completed his sentence(s) and was among the estimated 2,500 Jamaicans who Ms Johnson Smith said in May were rostered for deportation over a two-year period.

Addressing concerns over a possible influx of criminals into Jamaica’s already high-crime society, Ms Johnson Smith, like the national security minister, Dr Horace Chang, said the government was prepared.

She said: “We are not operating in a reactionary mode, and the relevant institutions are already aligned to respond. It is important to note that immigration enforcement has shifted globally, and while Jamaica is not exempt from its effects, we are planning accordingly.”

As any government should. But, as the government protects the country’s security, it must also protect citizens’ constitutional rights and freedoms.

NO CONCLUSION

In the absence of more and better particulars about the presumed Jamaican, The Gleaner makes no conclusion about his character or how he should be treated at this time, except that, if he is in fact Jamaican, he is entitled to the rights and protections afforded to all citizens by the Constitution, to be abridged only to the extent “as may be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”. And those infringement of rights must be in the context of law and with oversight from the courts.

Notably, those protected rights include “the right … of every citizen of Jamaica to enter Jamaica”.

Insisting on these rights, even for criminal deportees, is no great act of altruism. It is self-serving and in the service of all citizens. To diminish or infringe the right of any citizen, outside of what is allowably in law and in the context of what is “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”, is to undermine the rights of all citizens.

Which was the implicit argument Ms Johnson Smith made when she made clear that all Jamaican deportees would be taken back. It is their constitutional right of entry. And why Jamaica must support its citizens if they are sent to far off places against their will.

Today, it may be a hardened criminal who is renditioned. Who knows about tomorrow?