Jul. 18, 2025 By Bert Wilkinson
Jamaica’s government has expressed surprise that the Trump administration has deported one of its nationals to Eswatini or the former Swaziland, saying that Jamaican authorities have not refused to accept any person being deported back to the island over the decades.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamina Johnson Smith said in a statement early Friday that the Andrew Holness administration has begun to make formal inquiries to determine the accuracy of reports that a Jamaican national is among five people sent to the African nation by the Homeland Security Department this week.
The department had described the group as ”so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back,” an assertion the Jamaican government is refuting. The others are from Vietnam, Yemen, Laos, and Cuba. The department also noted that they “have been terrorizing American communities” but are“ off of American soil.”