Jamaica partners with US to track delinquent student loan borrowers

Jamaicans with outstanding student loans who migrate to the United States could encounter obstacles when updating or renewing their immigration status, due to a recent partnership between the Jamaican and U.S. governments aimed at tracking down borrowers with unpaid debts.

Cheryl Surjue, Manager of the Loan Servicing Department at Jamaica’s Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB), told JIS News that the new arrangement is designed to help identify Jamaican nationals in the U.S. who have outstanding student loan balances. Surjue explained that this partnership addresses cases where professionals migrate and default on their loans, leaving the SLB with no way to track them. “When they leave, we are not able to fully track their whereabouts, [and] those loans tend to go bad,” she said.

As part of this collaboration, U.S. immigration authorities will check with the SLB to verify whether Jamaicans applying for visa renewals have any outstanding student loans. “Persons who may have migrated on the J1 visa and want to renew their status with the U.S., before they can actually do that, there’s an arrangement where the U.S. government needs to find out from us (Jamaica) if this person is indebted to the Government,” Surjue added.