Jamaica began receiving third-country deportations from the U.S. this week, with the first flight of migrants arriving on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump’s administration has used the third-country policy to deport migrants who claim that their home countries are too dangerous to return to.
Tuesday’s flight saw 22 migrants land at Kingston’s Norman Manley International Airport in Jamaica.
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Jamaican authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. in June to allow transfers to begin. The agreement caps the number of migrants arriving to 25 “per fortnight.”
Jamaica’s Ministry of National Security and Peace and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade released a joint statement clarifying the new program on Tuesday, according to NBC News.
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“The government reiterates that this is a transit arrangement intended to facilitate the return of Third Country Nationals to their country of origin or other receiving countries, with the support of the IOM (International Organization for Migration),” the statement read.
“The arrangement will not be funded by the Government of Jamaica,” it continued. “No third-country national with criminal antecedents will be permitted to transit through Jamaica.”
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Third-country deportations have faced heavy attacks from critics of the Trump administration, and the Supreme Court is set to consider the legality of the policy in December.
The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration in September to continue its deportations while the question is being litigated.
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Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the administration’s request for a stay.
The decision gives the administration the immediate relief it sought as it presses ahead with third-country removals, even as the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the policy remains.
The dispute centers on the Trump administration’s efforts to remove illegal aliens to third countries. Lower courts have not categorically prohibited those removals but have required procedures intended to give aliens an opportunity to raise claims that they could face persecution or torture in the destination country.
