KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) is urging the Government to halt negotiations on a proposed agreement with the United States (US) to accept third-country nationals (TCNs) until the matter is subjected to rigorous, transparent parliamentary debate and broad civic consultation.

In a statement issued Monday, the council expressed deep distress over what it described as a “total lack of transparency” surrounding the TCN memorandum of understanding (MOU), noting that when statecraft takes place behind closed doors, it evades necessary ethical and democratic audit.

The council also questioned the rationale behind the proposed arrangement, saying key issues remain unanswered.

“Why are persons being sent to third-party partner countries like Jamaica rather than their country of origin? Wouldn’t direct repatriation to their homeland have made more sense? If the sending authorities harbour genuine, legitimate safety or security concerns about the deportee’s home country, how is sending them to a third country going to help mitigate that situation?” the council questioned.

The JCC called for a full, transparent and rigorous explanation from the Ministry of National Security and Peace and the Office of the Prime Minister, stressing that shifting human displacement from one shore to another does nothing to heal the root causes of regional and global instability; it merely outsources the logistical burden.

It also called out the “troubling structural double standard” in the nation’s approach to migration governance.

“For decades, our successive administrations have pleaded a lack of systemic capacity, fiscal room and infrastructural resources to justify the rapid, unceremonious repatriation of spontaneous regional arrivals—most notably our brothers and sisters fleeing the harrowing humanitarian catastrophe in nearby Haiti. We have been told repeatedly that Jamaica cannot absorb the vulnerable at our gates. Yet, when a proposal is brokered with a global superpower, our structural incapacity is suddenly set aside to accommodate a specialised transit apparatus,” the group said.

Noting that public policy is a sacred trust as it is intimately tied to human life and dignity, the council stressed that when that trust is weakened by opportunism, the consequences are felt most acutely by the vulnerable.

“To turn away the desperate seafaring migrant while opening an official transit pipeline for a superpower’s unwanted populations is to be found fundamentally wanting in the scales of justice. We cannot trade our moral birthright for political expediency or foreign assistance dividends.”

It noted that both Hebrew and Christian scriptures speak with clarity on refugees, citing Amos 2:6, where the Prophet Amos thunders divine judgment against nations precisely because, “they sell the innocent for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals” and Deuteronomy 23:15-16, which commands: “If a slave has taken refuge with you from their master, do not hand them over. Let them live among you wherever they like… Do not oppress them.”

Acknowledging that the Government faces complex national security challenges, economic constraints and geopolitical pressures, particularly in an era of aggressive international enforcement, the council said national development plans cannot be achieved through the degradation of international humanitarian conventions or the risk of chain refoulement—as illustrated by the tragic administrative error that saw a Jamaican citizen unlawfully deported to Eswatini in 2025.

Therefore, the Jamaica Council of Churches is calling on the Andrew Holness-led administration to cease immediate negotiations and provide full disclosure by releasing the complete text and operational guidelines of the proposed transit arrangement to the public to address the logical contradictions regarding third-country routing.

It is also calling on the Government to affirm non-refoulement.