分类： politics

WASHINGTON D.C. – The U.S. Department of Justice has launched denaturalization proceedings against 17 recently naturalized American citizens, a group that includes two Jamaican nationals, alongside individuals from Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti. All of the people targeted are accused of serious criminal offenses committed during the statutory period when they were required to prove good moral character to qualify for citizenship, as well as fraudulently concealing their illegal activity during naturalization processing.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a stern policy announcement delivered to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Minister of Land Titling and Settlements Robert Montague enacted a hardline new rule: any Jamaican who occupies unoccupied Crown land starting June 9 with the intent to squat will be permanently barred from eligibility for all government-managed land settlement programmes.

Montague, who also serves as the Member of Parliament for St Mary Western, clarified that the policy only applies to new encroachment, noting that existing squatters will retain their current standing under government programs. “If you’re there already yuh there already, but we not dealing with the new people,” he stated during his contribution to the annual Sectoral Debate.

Beyond tightening rules around new squatting, the minister also announced a sweeping crackdown on illegal land scamming, a persistent issue involving the fraudulent sale of publicly-owned Crown lands to unsuspecting buyers. Montague confirmed that ongoing investigations have resulted in a clear roadmap for enforcement: individuals caught illegally selling Crown land will face full criminal prosecution, while buyers who participate in these fraudulent transactions will forfeit any money they have invested.

To help Jamaicans avoid falling victim to these scams, Montague issued an urgent public advisory, urging all prospective land purchasers to verify ownership and legal status directly with the National Land Agency before completing any transaction. “Buying land is not like buying rice and flour, there’s a legal process but always remember, if it sounds too good to be true then it is not true. Save your money,” he added.

The minister also revealed that the Jamaican government has already completed comprehensive mapping of all occupied Crown lands, using advanced drone and spatial survey technology to create an accurate record of current occupants. This means authorities can clearly identify new encroachment occurring after the June 9 cutoff, he confirmed, adding that any new occupation will result in clear legal consequences.

In a nod to long-term solutions for the country’s longstanding squatting crisis, Montague announced that the government will soon unveil a major, comprehensive programme to address existing squatting in a systematic, orderly, and legally compliant manner. The new framework is designed to regularize legitimate land holdings while eliminating opportunities for fraud.

As part of the crackdown on scamming incentives, Montague emphasized that no public official has the authority to sell government-owned land, regardless of their position. “No member of parliament, nor councillor, nor JP, nor big man, nor area leader can sell government land,” he said. He also issued a direct warning to scammers who falsely claim to be acting on behalf of elected representatives: “To those persons scamming people and say is the MP send them, stop it because the MP never send yuh go do nutten like dat.”

Two separate federal court rulings have invalidated controversial, unlawful immigration policies implemented during the Donald Trump administration, drawing widespread applause from immigration advocates, legal organizations and state officials who have pushed back against the administration’s restrictive, anti-immigrant agenda.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — In a sharp rebuke delivered during Tuesday’s Sectoral Debate in the House of Representatives, opposition tourism spokesperson Andrea Purkiss has called into question the Jamaican government’s flagship tourism diversification strategy, accusing incumbent Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett of peddling a harmful “diversification myth” that has wasted hundreds of billions of Jamaican dollars with little to show for the investment. For years, Bartlett has framed the island nation’s overreliance on the U.S. travel market — which supplies more than 80% of all visitors to Jamaica — as an existential economic vulnerability. The minister first amplified this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, when border closures and travel restrictions in North America brought Jamaica’s core tourism industry to a near-standstill. On multiple occasions, he has argued that over-dependence on U.S. and Canadian travelers leaves Jamaica exposed to external shocks ranging from foreign policy changes to flight cancellations and public health advisories, framing diversification as not just a policy choice, but a matter of long-term economic survival. As the centerpiece of his five-point plan to grow the tourism sector, Bartlett pledged to open new visitor corridors across emerging markets: the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, and other regions disconnected from North America’s economic cycles. But Purkiss says the results of years of investment tell a very different story. Since 2015, the tourism ministry has allocated a total of J$2.86 billion to so-called “seat support” programs — taxpayer-funded subsidies designed to incentivize airlines to add new routes to these non-traditional markets. Purkiss argues that this massive spending has produced negligible returns. To back up her critique, she laid out concrete arrival data for each of Bartlett’s priority emerging markets: For the Middle East corridor Bartlett promoted during high-profile trips to Riyadh and Dubai, the net increase in visitor arrivals by the end of 2025 was just 330 people. Following Bartlett’s 2021 publicity-heavy trip to Nigeria, billed as opening a “historic gateway” for African travelers, net growth in visitor numbers from the region hit only 320, bringing total African arrivals to just 1,440. Even a push to tap India, one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing outbound travel markets, yielded only an additional 360 visitors. All told, these years of investment in new markets have delivered less than half a percent of Jamaica’s total annual visitor arrivals, with most new routes still operating well below capacity. “That is not diversification. That is expensive theatre,” Purkiss told parliament, noting that many of the subsidized new routes continue to fly with massive numbers of empty seats, failing to deliver the consistent visitor growth Bartlett promised. Echoing a common Jamaican idiom, she argued that while Bartlett’s rhetoric around diversification has been prolific, the costly policy has delivered no meaningful economic benefit to the island. Purkiss called on the minister to publicly account for the billions in taxpayer spending that has yielded such underwhelming results, putting renewed pressure on the government to defend its tourism strategy ahead of upcoming budget reviews.