Another batch of 15 deportees arrived here yesterday on a chartered jet from the United States of America. It was the same aircraft, which brought the first batch of deportees last Tuesday.

They are some of the 112 persons for whom the US authorities pressured the Guyana government to expedite the issue of travel documents.

The 15 were the second batch of deportees sent home from the US by private charter. With the deportees beginning to arrive both by chartered aircraft and regular commercial flights, the Guyana government is hoping that the ban on the issue of non-immigrant visas to government functionaries and their immediate family will soon be lifted. The ban was imposed about seven weeks ago following a determination by the US Justice Department that the government was not moving with the desired urgency to issue the travel documents for the deportees.

However, a US Embassy official has told Stabroek News that the lifting of the ban would depend on a determination by the Justice Department that Guyana had the necessary arrangement in place to address requests for travel documents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with the desired urgency.

Part of this arrangement could include a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two governments on how the requests will be addressed in future. It could also include the provision of assistance in monitoring the movements of the deportees in a manner that does not infringe their human rights.

As of now the MOU is unlikely to include the provision of financial assistance to help with the resettlement of the deportees. US Ambassador to Guyana, Ron Godard told reporters last week that he had had no instructions to that effect.

The Office of the President assumed the responsibility for responding to requests from the US authorities for the issue of travel documents when the ban was imposed. President Bharrat Jagdeo admitted at a press conference that the departments concerned had "fouled up" in passing information to the INS. A task force consisting of the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs and the head of the Presidential Secretariat has been assisting the Office of the President with the exercise.