JO - Grappling with broad-brush deportation

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Observer

Grappling with broad-brush deportation

Monday, March 08, 2010

WE are told in yesterday's Sunday Observer that more than 12,000 people were deported to Jamaica over the last four years. Many, many thousands more have been deported over the last two decades.

Read the whole editorial here.

Snippet(s):

"Talk never stops about deportations and the consequential difficulties for the Jamaican society. Invariably, Jamaicans focus on the perceived worsening of their country's crime problem as a result of hardcore criminal deportees from the United States, Britain and elsewhere entering the local underworld."

"(S)ince the passage of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in the United States, even unpaid fees for traffic offences can become grounds for deportation of non-US citizens, including green card holders."

&

"We would expect that the authorities in North America and Britain -- from whence the bulk of Jamaican deportees originate -- have long had to cope with such anti-social behaviour as a direct result of deportation-induced broken homes and families."