Deported Jamaicans land in Jamaica in first flight from the US

Jamaica: A flight with the first set of Jamaican deportees under the new United States President Donald Trump administration landed at the Norman Manley International Airport on Thursday morning. As soon as they landed at the airport, they were reportedly processed and released to families while others were taken into the custody of the police.  

This marks the beginning of a mass deportation operation targeting undocumented individuals who were residing in the United States. Notably, Jamaica has the maximum number of individuals 5,120 from the Caribbean region who are set to be deported from the United States.  

Nationals from several Caribbean nations have been marked in a list released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on non-detained individuals with final orders of removal.  

As of November 2024, the list shows over 1.4 million non-citizens of the United States. This list was revealed two months before Trump officially took over as the President for the second term.

While among the Caribbean nations Jamaica tops the list with 5,120 individuals, Guyana follows next with 1,236 and Trinidad and Tobago at 1,197. Belize (899), The Bahamas (426), Saint Lucia (202), Barbados (151), Grenada (149), St, Vincent and Grenadines (127), Antigua and Barbuda (110), Dominica (104) and St Kitts and Nevis (68). 

Among other nations, Haiti has 32,363, and Dominican Republic have 12,699 people. Other countries/territories from the region having their presence in the list are: Aruba (2), Bermuda (10), Cayman Islands (2), Montserrat (8), Netherlands Antilles (6), Turks and Caicos Islands (2), and Guadeloupe (12), among others. This makes over 90,000 Caribbean nationals in the United States who have been ordered to deport. 

Trump’s mega deportation strategy 

One of the major pillars of Trump’s immigration policy is removing illegal migrants from American soil and pledged to carry out his country’s largest deportation exercise in its history.  

The US defence department said it will provide military planes to deport more than 5,000 people that the border patrol officials have detained in places such as San Diego and El Paso in Texas bordering Mexico. The ICE’s figures suggested that more than 1,000 people were either removed or repatriated on January 23, 2025, the fourth day of Trump’s second term.