KINGSTON, Jamaica—Opposition Senator Lambert Brown on Friday lashed out at the move by the government to sign a third-country national (TCN) arrangement with the United States (US) that will provide for TCNs transferred from the US to transit through Jamaica to their final destination.

Brown, citing comments by United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, described the agreement as a move by the United States to dump ‘some of the most despicable, pedophiles and dangerous people’ in Jamaica.

“I raise the issue: why are you bringing to Jamaica the most despicable, pedophiles and dangerous people that your MOU has brought?” Brown said on Friday in the Senate.

But President of the Senate Tom Tavares-Finson was quick to question whether Brown’s comments were the position of the People’s National Party.

Brown, in response, said: “I am saying here that in choosing to bring the TCN, you are choosing what Rubio said, despicable, pedophiles who don’t want to get away from America and to dump on us.”

Rubio in April said the United States was in talks with multiple countries to get them to take people from third countries who are residing in the US illegally.

“We are working with other countries to say, ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries,'” Rubio said at a press briefing at the White House on April 30. “‘Will you do that as a favour to us?’ And the further away the better, so they can’t come back across the border.’