Immigration reporter Luis Ferré-Sadurní and photojournalist Todd Heisler (The New York Times) relate the circumstances of a Jamaican man deported to his homeland the second deportation flight to Jamaica after Mr. Trump took office. The flight taking Mr. Blair the island country also carried more than 50 other Jamaicans. Here are excerpts from Ferré-Sadurní’s article.
Two decades had passed since Nascimento Blair was last in Jamaica, his homeland. Much had changed, including Mr. Blair himself.
Nascimento Blair returned home in shackles.
He landed in Jamaica in February, 21 years after he had abandoned the island, seated next to dozens of his countrymen who were also handcuffed. As he stepped off the plane at the seaside airport in Kingston and felt the scorching Caribbean sun of his youth, Mr. Blair, 44, was greeted with suspicion.
Still dazed, he looked out of place. He had on the same winter clothes — a peacoat, turtleneck, gray suit and Chelsea boots — he had been wearing when U.S. immigration authorities had abruptly detained him on a frigid morning in New York City weeks earlier.
He noticed his slightly Americanized accent as he sat through hours of interrogation by Jamaican authorities at the airport. And he felt like an outcast as Jamaican officials snapped his mug shot, took his fingerprints and asked about his past.
“They don’t look at you like a Jamaican,” Mr. Blair said. “They look at you like a criminal.”
Mr. Blair did not give them details about his past, an odyssey that began with a side hustle dealing marijuana in the New York suburbs as a 24-year-old Jamaican transplant, which led to a kidnapping conviction he disputed and a 15-year prison sentence he fulfilled.
It was his criminal past that had gotten him deported from the United States, where he had been rebuilding his life and seeking redemption. He had earned two college degrees, started a trucking business, mentored people released from prison, cared for a fiancée with breast cancer, taken classes at Columbia University.
None of it would stave off deportation: He was among the first few thousand immigrants scattered across the globe during the early days of President Trump’s deportation campaign.
On paper, Mr. Blair fit the profile of the people Mr. Trump says he wants to deport: those with criminal backgrounds. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security blamed the Biden administration for not deporting Mr. Blair sooner.
But to Mr. Blair and his supporters, his life story was one of rehabilitation, nuanced and filled with qualities that they believe Mr. Trump’s deportation machine disregards as it flies out immigrants en masse.
His removal from the United States and dizzying journey back to the Caribbean raises a fundamental question Americans are grappling with as they consider the president’s immigration crackdown: Who deserves to stay?
After shuttling between detention centers for weeks, Mr. Blair was back in Jamaica, a proud island known for revering its national heroes — Bob Marley, Usain Bolt, Marcus Garvey — but not for welcoming deportees warmly.
Mr. Blair was home, except Jamaica did not feel like home. [. . .]
A Conviction Haunts an Arrival
The GlobalX plane that landed at Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston at 11:29 a.m. on Feb. 27 — carrying Mr. Blair and more than 50 other Jamaicans — was the second deportation flight to Jamaica after Mr. Trump took office.
Caribbean nations have been bracing for an influx of flights packed with repatriated citizens, as well as people looking to self-deport to avoid the shame associated with deportation. [. . .]
A ‘Metamorphosis’ in Prison
The man from Jamaica stood out at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a notorious maximum-security prison. Indeed, by many accounts, the Nascimento Blair that emerged from prison on April 9, 2020, was a changed man. [. . .]
He soon turned to education. While incarcerated, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Mercy University and a master’s degree in leadership from the New York Theological Seminary. [. . .]
“Sing Sing was my metamorphosis,” said Mr. Blair, who made the dean’s list. [. . .]
Read full article and see more photos by Todd Heisler at The New York Times.