Government Senator and Jamaica Labour Party Communications Taskforce member Marlon Morgan has accused People’s National Party Senator Lambert Brown of misleading the public in relation to the government’s Third Country National arrangement with the United States.
Senator Brown, speaking in the Senate last Friday, criticised the agreement, declaring that the Government was agreeing to accept what he described as the “most despicable” individuals rejected by the United States.
In response, Senator Morgan rejected the claims as false, reckless and irresponsible.
Declaring that the ministers responsible for information and national security respectively “have been very clear,” he said Jamaica “has expressly indicated that no individual with criminal antecedents will be accepted into the island under the agreement regarding asylum seekers. This has been outlined unequivocally and reiterated on several occasions.”
Nevertheless, he charged that Senator Brown, “in a most egregious, reckless and vulgar displ… sought to mislead the country into thinking otherwise.”
He said the government rejected “the misleading allegation from Brown and the PNP and reaffirm that the government has been diligent in protecting Jamaica’s best interest.”
Senator Morgan said the Memorandum of Understanding is similar to agreements reached between the United States and more than 20 countries across the region.
It was intended, he said, to facilitate the temporary transit of a limited number of asylum seekers to their home countries while safeguarding Jamaica’s national security and the welfare of its citizens.
“The agreement sees Jamaica numbering among a raft of countries to agree to assist Jamaica’s traditionally close ally and major trading partner, the United States, in an endeavor which paid due regard to safeguarding the national security and the general well-being of the Jamaican people,” he stressed.