IT WAS a most unfortunate development and now that the United States has decided to lift the ban on issuing non-immigrant visas to Guyanese, both countries should swiftly move to address all the issues surrounding deportees being shipped back here from the United States.

The visa restrictions imposed undue hardships on Guyanese who had nothing to do with the politics of the issues involved.

The U.S. had some 113 persons it said were Guyanese and no longer wanted them there because they had committed crimes, had served time in jail and should be on their way to the land of their birth.

The U.S. authorities were acting to the letter of the law, saying they could no longer keep in detention prisoners who had served their time and could not set them loose in the streets of the U.S.

They wanted the bad guys out and used the superpower muscle to ensure they no longer enjoyed the hospitality of Uncle Sam.

So the Guyana Government was told it had to acknowledge the deportees as Guyanese and issue them with the necessary travel documents to get them out.

And it was given a deadline that was not met, reportedly because some officials here did not move quickly enough in processing the necessary documents.

And the non-immigrant visa ban was imposed on government functionaries, employees and their relatives.

Some Guyanese with genuine reasons for wanting to visit the United States since the ban was imposed on October 30, were denied non-immigrant visas simply because someone for them happened to be working with a government department.

Some of those affected were not high government officials or close relatives of high government officials; they were ordinary people needing to visit the U.S. but were denied visas simply because of blood ties to persons in government or quasi-government departments.

Guyana has now met the benchmarks set by the U.S. and it's back to normal on the visa front - for the time.

The U.S. has more deportees it wants shipped back here and is looking forward to the "continued cooperation" of the Guyana Government on the issue.

If there is further slippage, the ban may well be re-imposed and this is something that sides should try their utmost to avoid.

There are too many Guyanese with extremely close family and other ties in the U.S. and they should not be subjected to the traumas of being under the pressures of power politics.

Foreign Minister, Mr. Rudy Insanally yesterday said the lifting of the visa ban, which he called a "welcome" development, sets the stage for concrete negotiations between the two countries on a Memorandum of Understanding that will set out clearly the conditions under which Guyanese would be deported in the future.

Those negotiations should be treated as a matter of urgency to avoid the snafus that led to the rather unfortunate visa restrictions that unnecessarily hurt people.

The U.S. and Guyana have long enjoyed warm and friendly ties, made even closer with the mass of Guyanese that have made their home in the world's superpower, and such harsh measures should be avoided at all costs.