Leader of the Opposition Jamale Pringle said Thursday that the government’s white paper on receiving third-country nationals from the United States describes what amounts to a “legal trap,” pointing to the country’s lack of a stand-alone refugee act as the central gap exposed by the document.

The United Progressive Party (UPP) held a town hall meeting last night, ahead of a special sitting of Parliament next week to debate the white paper.

He said the document, published July 2, acknowledges that a transferred individual who cannot be deported to their home country or returned to the United States could become “non-removable,” leaving them in indefinite detention or irregular status with no domestic legislation to resolve their case.

Pringle said the memorandum of understanding, signed December 19, 2025, nor the subsequent US-drafted operating procedures referenced in the white paper have been shared with Parliament or the public, despite the government’s counterproposals to Washington being made.

Pringle said the absence of the underlying documents means Tuesday’s parliamentary sitting risks becoming what he called political theatre rather than substantive debate, since members would be responding to the government’s characterization of the agreement rather than its actual text.

He said the UPP intends to press the government publicly to release both the MOU and the US operating procedures before the debate proceeds.