Hu­man rights groups are call­ing on the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment to heed the call from the Unit­ed Na­tions Refugee Agency to sus­pend the forced de­por­ta­tion of il­le­gal Hait­ian mi­grants.

In a joint state­ment, Stand Up for Ja­maica (SUFJ) and Ja­maicans for Jus­tice (JFJ) said they were al­so urg­ing the An­drew Hol­ness ad­min­is­tra­tion to launch a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the treat­ment of Hait­ian mi­grants and asy­lum seek­ers in Ja­maica.

They said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion should ex­am­ine whether process­es to de­ter­mine the sta­tus of the Haitians are in line with those de­tailed in Ja­maica’s Refugee Pol­i­cy, call­ing al­so for a probe in­to re­ports of abuse and un­nec­es­sary or ar­bi­trary de­ten­tion.

Ja­maica de­port­ed 20 Haitians who had il­le­gal­ly land­ed in Kens­ing­ton, Port­land, on Sat­ur­day. The de­por­ta­tion is the lat­est by the au­thor­i­ties here of Hait­ian na­tion­als who are flee­ing the French-speak­ing Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) coun­try that has been deal­ing with crim­i­nal gangs that have tak­en over the ma­jor­i­ty of the cap­i­tal since the as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moi­se in Ju­ly 2021.

De­spite the pres­ence of a Kenya-led Unit­ed Na­tions backed Multi­na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sup­port (MSS) mis­sion, the gangs have con­tin­ued their crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing rape and mur­der. Last week, one gang was re­port­ed to have killed at least 70 peo­ple. To de­port the Haitians, not­ing “We are see­ing once again where Haitians seek­ing refugee sta­tus are be­ing de­nied [the] right to refugee sta­tus and have their ap­pli­ca­tions du­ly processed”.

They have al­so made ref­er­ence to a state­ment by at­tor­ney Ma­lene Al­leyne, the head of Free­dom Imag­i­nar­ies, who was de­nied ac­cess to vis­it the Haitians.

“These per­sons now join a pool of over 130 Haitians who have sought asy­lum since Ju­ly 2023, most of whom have al­ready been ex­pelled from Ja­maica with­out be­ing grant­ed ac­cess to asy­lum pro­ce­dures or le­gal coun­sel. The con­tin­ued un­der­min­ing [of] Haitians’ le­gal right to an at­tor­ney and due process are fla­grant vi­o­la­tions.

“The lack of ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and im­me­di­ate in­sti­tu­tion of crim­i­nal charges makes it near­ly im­pos­si­ble for per­sons to make their in­ten­tion to seek refugee sta­tus, as pro­vid­ed for un­der Ja­maica’s refugee pol­i­cy of 2009, known.”

The two hu­man rights groups say that in some in­stances the Haitians have been charged with il­le­gal en­try.

“Treat­ed as crim­i­nals with­out any ev­i­dence of wrong­do­ing; and de­spite flee­ing vi­o­lence, hunger, and in­sta­bil­i­ty. They de­serve prop­er as­sess­ments to de­ter­mine their refugee sta­tus rather than au­to­mat­ic crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion by Ja­maican au­thor­i­ties.”

KINGSTON, Ja­maica, Oct 9, CMC –

CMC/ag/ir/2024