Mystery deportee faces 15 years in U.S. jail
THE mystery deportee flown back last week to the United States after spending almost a year here, faces serious charges and could be sent to a federal jail for 15 years if found guilty, a U.S. immigration spokesperson said yesterday. Ms Luisa Aquino-Fine of the Houston, Texas office of the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) said the man calling himself Edgar Garfield Gibbons is a "criminal alien" and is back in an immigration detention centre. She said the INS is looking at whether to charge him with "administrative and criminal code violation" and if he is found guilty he could be sentenced to 15 years in a federal prison. The deportee swore in evidence to a false identity, she said. Aquino-Fine told the Chronicle by telephone "we have a fair idea" of the man's real identity and nationality but the department is awaiting confirmation. The man named Gibbons deported here by U.S. immigration as a Guyanese last April claimed he is American and was sent to Guyana by mistake. The Guyana Government established he was not Guyanese and the American Embassy here said there was nothing to prove he is a U.S. citizen. The man was deported here after serving time in a Texas jail on a drugs offence and was kept at the Brickdam police station in Georgetown until he was flown back. The embassy said although the deportee has not been documented as a U.S. citizen, the INS "has authorised his return to the United States pending final determination of his true identity and nationality." After a jail term in Texas on a marijuana possession conviction, the man admitted to an immigration judge that he was Guyanese and "based on clear and convincing evidence in his file, the judge ordered him removed to Guyana", Aquino-Fine said. She said the "criminal alien" was in INS custody for 66 days last year after serving time in jail, and never indicated "any kind of U.S. citizenship". He remains a criminal alien in a detention centre in Houston and cannot be released into the community "because he is a threat to that community", she said. The INS spokesperson said he was taken back to Texas and investigations are continuing to determine which country he came from. The agency has had several leads and "may be very close" to determining his country of origin, she indicated. The American embassy here denied his request for documentation as a U.S. citizen "because his claimed date and place of birth in the United States could not be verified". The man calling himself Gibbons left on a North American airline flight to New York Friday night and was taken to Texas Saturday, Aquino-Fine said. Gibbons late last year gained media attention by claiming he was American-born and wanted to go back home. He was smiling as two local cops escorted him into the Cheddi Jagan International Airport at Timehri just after 16:00 hrs (4 p.m.) Friday. He smiled broadly and gave a `high five' (victory) sign to a Chronicle photographer who briefly saw him as he was whisked into the airport. About five hours later, the man calling himself Gibbons was aboard the North American passenger jet heading for New York and back to the Texas detention centre from whence he first journeyed to Guyana. Three U.S. marshals took custody of him from Guyanese Police on board the jet and the Chronicle understands he was soon handcuffed for the some five-hour flight to New York. The man who had also been to jail on a cocaine charge in the past, claimed he was born in Louisiana on November 9, 1958. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the international police organisation (Interpol) were called in to try to establish his identity. Home Affairs Minister, Mr Ronald Gajraj had warned airlines that the government will reserve the right to reject passengers who arrive here without proper travel documents and they will be responsible for their repatriation. He said there is a record of a Guyanese with the same name leaving Guyana in 1978 for the U.S. but his particulars do not match those of the Gibbons who was deported here. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon said that Guyana was a victim of a deportee hoax in the continuing saga of the man the U.S. immigration officials shipped here. He recently told reporters that the government's position is that Gibbons is not a Guyanese and it is clear that Guyana was the victim of an incorrect or inaccurate or an out and out hoax. The U.S Embassy said a thorough check of U.S. records failed to substantiate the applicant's claims to citizenship by virtue of birth in Louisiana. "We are able to determine that the gentleman residing in Brickdam was not born when and where he said he was born. He was never enrolled in the Houston, Texas, schools he claims to have attended," the embassy said. The mission had reported that its consular staff had been closely working with the INS and the Government of Guyana to establish the credibility of the claim to U.S. citizenship of Gibbons. 
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