These are statements about the public record, not about the country. "Investigating" means the Coalition has not located a report or a decision on that point and is still looking. It is not a finding that the thing did not happen.
Basis: the depositary record of the treaties Jamaica has and has not joined, Jamaica’s own report to the Human Rights Council, the Jamaica Information Service’s account of the arrangement, the Human Rights Committee’s findings of 2016, and the refugee agency’s own mapping of Jamaican law. No one has yet been transferred to Jamaica. The designation is not for anything done to a transferred person. It is that Jamaica has agreed to receive people while standing outside the Convention against Torture entirely, having closed the only other United Nations complaint route available to them, and while describing an asylum procedure that does not exist in its law.
Jamaica is not a party to the Convention against Torture. It does not appear in the depositary’s participants table at all, as signatory or as party, and its own report to the Human Rights Council says so. Of every state the Coalition has examined as a receiving state, Jamaica is the only one outside the treaty altogether.
Jamaica denounced the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 23 October 1997, ending individual complaints to the Human Rights Committee. Combined with the absence of any Convention against Torture obligation, there is no United Nations individual complaint route of any kind. Jamaica ratified the American Convention in 1978 but never accepted the Inter-American Court, so what remains is the Inter-American Commission’s petition system, which produces reports that do not bind.
The Government’s published account of how a transferred person would seek protection is that “persons choosing to stay must apply to courts for asylum”. No such procedure exists in Jamaican law. There is no asylum statute and no court-based asylum jurisdiction. Status determination rests on a policy instrument of 2009, adopted by the Government rather than enacted, and that document is published in a form with no text layer, so it cannot be read or quoted by anyone.
While no one has been sent to Jamaica, Jamaicans have been sent onward by the United States to other people’s countries: at least one to Equatorial Guinea in June 2026, and a group to Eswatini in July 2026 that reporting says included a 64-year-old pastor whose family said he had no criminal convictions in the United States and had been granted protection under the Convention against Torture in 2016. One Jamaican sent to Eswatini in 2025 has since been repatriated.
The Coalition’s position. This state agreed to receive people who are not its nationals, moved against their will, under a programme United States federal courts have found punitive and whose purpose was stated publicly before the agreement was made. On the Coalition’s position it has knowingly facilitated that programme, and the wrong is complete at the moment of agreement. Nothing on this page is offered as mitigation. What a receiving state agrees to.
Jamaica signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States on 10 June 2026. Fifteen months of this programme have passed elsewhere in the region. Nobody has been transferred to Jamaica. Both monitoring trackers record none, and reporting of 10 September 2026 says Jamaica remains without arrivals. This page therefore describes what a person would find if sent, not what anyone found.
Arrangement. A memorandum of understanding, signed 10 June 2026 and approved by Cabinet. The text has not been published, and the responsible minister told Parliament there is no intention to table it.
In force? Contested by the Government’s own statements. Its information service described the arrangement in the present tense on 18 June. On 26 June the minister said it “will not take effect until both countries complete operational guidelines”. The Coalition found nothing recording that those guidelines were ever completed. Signed is not the same as in effect, and this is the clearest illustration of that in the section.
Role. The Government describes Jamaica as a transit country: people would “transit through Jamaica to third territories, including their home countries”, and the arrangement is “not intended as permanent migration”.
Transferred. None recorded, by either tracker, to 11 September 2026.
There are two separate limits and they measure different things, so they are not in conflict with each other. One is a rate and one is a standing total.
On the rate both sources agree: up to 25 people every two weeks. On the standing total they do not. The Government’s own information service says “at no time will the number exceed 25”, and the minister is quoted saying that “no more than 25 individuals would be in Jamaica at any given time”. The monitoring project says no more than 10 at once. The Coalition publishes both and does not reconcile them. One further discrepancy is recorded rather than resolved: an outlet’s own narration in the same article gives fewer than fifty every two weeks, which does not match the figure it quotes the minister as giving.
A rate of 25 a fortnight and a standing total of 25 are only compatible if every group leaves within a fortnight. The Government has not said what happens if a group does not. Asked what would follow if all twenty-five decided to remain, the minister said the programme would stop immediately. That is a termination trigger, not an answer to the question.
These are the Government’s claims, quoted as claims. Prior health screening, identity verification, criminal record checks and clearance from the National Intelligence Bureau would be required. People with criminal antecedents would not be accepted. The United States would pay for the initial stay. Jamaica would retain authority to reject any individual proposed. Either party could terminate the whole arrangement without long notice.
One further claim deserves its own line because of how it is likely to be repeated. The Government’s information service states that similar agreements exist with several other states and cites “an approximate 94 per cent return rate”. No source is given for that figure, it is a government information service reporting a government claim, and at least one of the states named was still refusing the numbers the United States proposed as late as September 2026. The Coalition records it as a claim and nothing more.
Jamaica is a party to the refugee instruments. That is the opposite of Guyana and Saint Lucia, and it matters. What Jamaica does not have is a law.
Four independent sources say the same thing in different words. The refugee agency told the Human Rights Council in 2014 that Jamaica “has however not yet developed any domestic implementing legislation for the protection of refugees or the granting of asylum”, and recorded the adoption of a National Refugee Policy in 2009 as strengthening a pre-existing ad hoc framework. The Human Rights Committee, in its concluding observations of 22 November 2016, said at paragraph 39 that it was “concerned about the lack of legislation on the protection of asylum seekers and refugees”. The refugee agency’s own mapping of Jamaican law records that there is “no codified asylum law in force”, that no recent enactment has established formal status determination procedures, that people seeking protection are processed case by case “without a formalized legal framework or dedicated procedural safeguards”, and that the regime relies on “policy instruments and ad hoc measures rather than statutory mandates”. A detention monitoring project records that Jamaica “does not have an official asylum reception system” and that there are “no official mechanisms in place to assist in the identification of asylum seekers”.
So refugee status determination in Jamaica rests on a policy of 2009, adopted by the Government rather than enacted by Parliament. Whether Cabinet specifically approved it is widely described and the Coalition could not confirm it from a primary source. The statutes that do the work are immigration control statutes of 1942, 1945 and 1946, none of them a refugee statute. The operational agency is the passport, immigration and citizenship agency, under the Ministry of National Security. No appeal route is identified in any source the Coalition read.
Against that background, the Government’s public description of the route deserves to be set beside the legal record rather than paraphrased. Its information service wrote that “persons choosing to stay must apply to courts for asylum; those rejected are sent home”. The minister’s own formulation in Parliament was different again: “if they get asylum status we retain them”. Neither describes anything that exists. The Coalition states this as a mismatch between the official description and the legal record. It does not assert bad faith, and it notes that a government describing a procedure it does not have is a problem for the person told to use it whatever the reason.
One country condition bears directly on who could safely be sent here, and the Coalition sets it out because refusing to would be a failure of the exercise. Consensual sexual conduct between men is criminalised in Jamaica. The monitoring project records that this contributes to hostility, discrimination, exclusion and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and that a gay third country national transferred there would be placed at risk by it. The Coalition reports that as the project reports it and has not checked the criminalising provision against the statute itself.
In July 2026 hundreds of people demonstrated in Jamaica against the arrangement, on grounds of transparency and security. Jamaicans in the United States have organised against it as well. As of July 2026 more than three thousand Jamaicans were reported to be awaiting removal proceedings in the United States.
No country in this section illustrates the two-sidedness of this programme more sharply. Jamaica has agreed to receive people and has received none. In the same months its own nationals were being moved to countries not their own.
Reporting records at least one Jamaican national removed to Equatorial Guinea on or about 23 June 2026, and Jamaican nationals removed to Eswatini on or about 9 July 2026. Among the latter group, according to family accounts carried in the Jamaican press, was a 64-year-old pastor who had no criminal convictions in the United States and who had been granted protection under the Convention against Torture in 2016. A Jamaican national sent to Eswatini in 2025 has since been repatriated. A United States immigration attorney representing a Jamaican client has said publicly that these arrangements are being used to work around international human rights law.
The Coalition names none of the people concerned and offers no view on any proceeding before a court in another country. What it records is the shape: a state being asked to receive other people’s nationals while its own are being sent to a third continent, one of them said to have held protection granted under the very Convention this state has never joined.
A Jamaican broadcaster has reported that United States officials, frustrated by slow progress in negotiations, threatened to revoke the visas of Jamaican nationals, and that this prompted the Government to approve the arrangement. That is a single outlet’s account of what was said privately and the Coalition has not corroborated it. It is recorded here because it is on the public record in Jamaica and because a page that omitted it would be leaving out the explanation Jamaicans themselves have been given.
What is not in dispute is the surrounding dependence. The United States is Jamaica’s largest trading partner, many Jamaican goods enter it without tariff, United States firms operate widely in the country, and remittances account for a significant share of national income. United States development assistance had run for more than sixty years before a freeze on foreign aid. The Coalition sets those facts out without asserting that any of them caused any decision.
This is the thinnest supervisory position of any state in this section, and it is thin by choice rather than by omission.
Jamaica has never joined the Convention against Torture. It is absent from the depositary’s participants table, and its own report to the Human Rights Council in 2025 confirms it. There is therefore no Committee against Torture obligation of any kind: no reporting, no examination, no inquiry, and no individual complaint. It is not a party to the Optional Protocol either, so there is no preventive mechanism and no Subcommittee visit.
The other United Nations door was open once and was shut. Jamaica denounced the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights with effect from 1997. The Human Rights Committee still examines Jamaica under the Covenant itself, and did so in 2016, but an individual can no longer petition it.
Regionally, Jamaica ratified the American Convention on Human Rights in 1978 and has never accepted the contentious jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court. The Inter-American Commission’s petition system therefore remains the only individual route in existence, and it ends in a report that does not bind.
Domestically there is an Office of the Public Defender, whose published mandate is to investigate allegations of constitutional breach and maladministration by ministries, departments, agencies and statutory bodies. Its mandate is framed by subject matter rather than by nationality, so whether a person who is not a national could complain to it is a question worth putting to the office. The Coalition could not resolve it from the published material.
Nothing below is advice, and no page can tell a particular person what to do in their case.
What exists, in the order in which it usually matters
The Government’s published account says a person choosing to stay must apply to a court for asylum. There is no such jurisdiction in Jamaican law. Time spent looking for it is time lost, and knowing that in advance is the single most useful thing on this page.
Status determination has been done case by case by the Government with the refugee agency and non-governmental organisations, when applicants come forward. Coming forward, to the passport and immigration agency and to the refugee agency at the same time, is what the record describes.
There is no office in the country. Jamaica sits inside a Northern and Eastern Caribbean operation run from Washington, which publishes no telephone number and an email address the Coalition could not read.
Jamaica is not a party to the Convention against Torture and left the individual complaints protocol in 1997. The Inter-American Commission remains open to petitions.
Every entry below was checked on 11 September 2026 against the source named in it, with its age stated. No contact for the refugee agency could be verified and none is printed. The Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights exists and has appeared in United Nations processes, but the Coalition obtained no verified current details for it and prints none.
Official bodies
The operational immigration authority, under the Ministry of National Security. Regional offices in Montego Bay, Mandeville, May Pen, Saint Ann’s Bay and Port Antonio share the same number. Nothing on its website refers to asylum, and it publishes no opening hours
Checked 11 September 2026 · Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency
Investigates allegations of constitutional breach and maladministration by ministries, departments, agencies and statutory bodies. The mandate is framed by subject matter rather than nationality, so whether a person who is not a national may complain is a question for the office rather than one this page can answer. The website carries a 2025 copyright, so treat these details as up to a year old
Checked 11 September 2026, source up to a year old · Office of the Public Defender
State legal aid. The published page does not say which matters it covers, and Jamaica’s scheme is generally understood to be led by criminal work. Whether it reaches immigration or asylum matters is not established and this page does not imply that it does. The website carries a 2024 copyright, so treat these details as up to two years old
Checked 11 September 2026, source up to two years old · Legal Aid Council
The refugee agency’s own regional page lists Jamaica among the countries it covers and states that the office is in Washington. It publishes no physical address for that office and no telephone number, and the email address is given in a form the Coalition could not read. Coverage is not presence, and this page prints no contact it could not verify.
Nobody has been transferred. Fifteen months into this programme across the region, Jamaica has received no one. Whatever the memorandum says, it has not so far been used.
The Government may not regard it as operative. Its own minister said sixteen days after signature that the arrangement would not take effect until operational guidelines were complete, and nothing records their completion.
Screening, a veto and an exit are all claimed. Health screening, identity verification, criminal record checks and intelligence clearance; no one with criminal antecedents; authority to reject any individual; and termination by either party without long notice.
Jamaica is a party to the refugee instruments, which several states in this section are not, and adopted a refugee policy in 2009 that the refugee agency itself described as strengthening what came before.
The state is under real domestic scrutiny. The arrangement was debated in Parliament, hundreds demonstrated against it in July 2026, the diaspora has organised, and the press has pressed for the text.
The Human Rights Committee still examines Jamaica under the Covenant, and did so in 2016. The loss is the individual petition, not the supervision.
The text of the memorandum. Not published, and the responsible minister has said it will not be tabled.
Whether the arrangement is in force. Two government statements, eight days apart, do not agree.
The standing cap. The Government says twenty-five at any time; the monitoring project says ten.
What would happen to a group that did not leave within a fortnight.
Whether Cabinet specifically approved the 2009 refugee policy, and what that policy says, since its only public copy cannot be read.
Whether there is any appeal from a refusal of protection. No source the Coalition read identifies one.
Whether the Public Defender will take a complaint from a person who is not a national.
The source of the 94 per cent return rate the Government has cited.
Whether visa revocation was in fact threatened. One broadcaster reports it; the Coalition has not corroborated it.
The Coalition writes Investigating rather than none found, because the second phrase reads as though a question has been answered when it has only been asked.
The memorandum, and the National Refugee Policy 2009 in a readable form. Those two documents together would answer most of the questions above.
Verified contact details for the refugee agency’s covering office and for the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights.
Any account from a person transferred, because there has not yet been one, and any account from the Jamaicans sent to Equatorial Guinea and Eswatini, in their own words.
If you can correct anything on this page, the Coalition wants to hear it.
Every source relied on above, linked so it can be read in full rather than through this summary.
The arrangement. Jamaica Information Service, 18 June 2026, for the signature of 10 June 2026, the quota of twenty-five every two fortnightly period, the screening requirements, the United States paying for the initial stay, the transit framing, the termination clause, the asylum description and the ninety-four per cent claim. The Caribbean Camera, 26 June 2026, quoting the minister on the standing total and on the arrangement not taking effect until operational guidelines are complete. The Gleaner, 18 June 2026, for the minister’s parliamentary formulation. Third Country Deportation Watch, Jamaica page, for the standing cap of ten, the reported visa revocation threats, the removals of Jamaicans to Equatorial Guinea and Eswatini, the attorney’s statement, the protests, and the country conditions reported above, each attributed rather than adopted.
The absence of an asylum law. UNHCR submission to the Universal Periodic Review, September 2014. Human Rights Committee, concluding observations on the fourth periodic report of Jamaica, CCPR/C/JAM/CO/4, 22 November 2016, paragraph 39. UNHCR rights mapping and analysis platform, Jamaica. Global Detention Project, Jamaica profile, last updated 7 April 2025.
Treaty status, from the depositary. United Nations Treaty Collection, chapter IV-9, in whose participants table Jamaica does not appear at all; chapter IV-9-b for the Optional Protocol, to which Jamaica is not a party; chapter IV-5 for the First Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, recording the denunciation with effect from 1997. Inter-American Court of Human Rights, states accepting contentious jurisdiction, from which Jamaica is absent.
The regional statement. Caribbean Community statement on third country nationals, July 2026, which describes the purpose of these arrangements as transit back to people’s own countries. The concern about onward removal from one country to another that is sometimes attributed to that statement is the monitoring project’s inference, and the Coalition does not attribute it to the Conference.
Compiled 11 September 2026. Where this page summarises a decision or a report, the full document is linked above and should be read in preference to this summary. Where a document could not be opened, this page says so rather than quoting it at second hand as though it had been read. Two claims were removed before publication: a statement that the two published caps for Jamaica were simply a rate and a standing total and therefore consistent, when the standing total itself is given as ten by the monitoring project and twenty-five by the Government, and the conflict is real; and a date taken from the web address of a United Nations press release rather than from the document, which was wrong by three years. No person transferred under any arrangement is named on this page, and no person whose case is before a court elsewhere is identified. Corrections to the Coalition.