Gibbons reunited with daughter
Edward Gibbons was reunited with his two-year-old daughter last Sunday when she and her mother Donita Turner visited him at the Corrections Corporation of America facility in Houston, Texas. Gibbons was returned to Houston, Texas from where he was deported to Guyana on April 28, 1999. He was deported back to the US after the authorities here determined that he was not Guyanese as the US immigration authorities said. Turner told Stabroek News last night from her home in Houston that she and her daughter had a two-hour visit with Gibbons at the facility where he was being held. She said that he was glad to see his daughter whom he had not seen for more than a year. Turner said that Gibbons was trying to be strong but that he was depressed at the conditions under which he was being held and that he missed the relative freedom of the Brickdam holding facility for deportees. She said that the FBI was still trying to ascertain Gibbons' nationality and true identity and had questioned her to this effect. Turner said that she had referred them to a "Mr Irving" who had served with his father in Vietnam, but they had informed her that he had died recently and his wife had been unable to provide any assistance. The FBI and Interpol were contacted by the US Immigration and Naturalization Services in an effort determine the nationality of Gibbons, whom they said was not American as he claims. The US Embassy here was unable to verify the information about his birth and parents which Gibbons had provided on oath. Gibbons said that he was born in Monroe, Louisiana and that his father Byfield, had been killed in Vietnam. Stabroek News understands that the transportation papers which were presented to the airline on which he returned to America stated that he was Jamaican and gave his date of birth as September 9, 1958. Gibbons has insisted that his date of birth is November 9. The date of birth of the Guyanese named Gibbons with whom he was confused is November 5. When he was deported to Guyana the US immigration papers said that he was born in Guyana on November 9, at Bagotville. It listed both of his parents as deceased. The Guyanese Gibbons, who now resides in the New York Tri-State area was born at Bagotville and his mother who resides in the US is alive.
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