All of the 112 Guyanese who the United States government wanted issued with travel documents so that they could be deported to Guyana have been returned.

And so far, the Ministry of Home Affairs has had insufficient information to positively identify the eight persons held by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations as Guyanese.

Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, yesterday told Stabroek News that there was not enough information for the General Register Office to ascertain if their births had been registered. As a result, the Immigration Department also could not ascertain whether they had been issued with passports, if they were in fact Guyanese.

The Guyana Embassy in Washington DC has not been able to ascertain where the eight, detained by the FBI in its sweep after the September 11, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, are being held.

Meanwhile, the minister confirmed to Stabroek News that all 112 persons for whom travel documents had been requested had been returned, in addition to others not on the list submitted to the Guyana government by US Ambassador to Guyana, Ronald Godard.

The government's tardiness in issuing the documents had led to the imposition of a ban on the issue of non-immigrant visas to government officials and their immediate families who wanted to travel to the United States. The ban was lifted two months later after the US government was satisfied that the government here was moving with urgency to issue the documents.

Among those who were returned recently was a 37-year old man convicted several times for possession of narcotics. He had left Guyana at the age of 15. Another was a 42-year-old, who left here 41 years ago. He was deported after being convicted for trafficking in narcotics and armed robbery and serving a six-year sentence.

Gajraj told Stabroek News too that the persons being deported from Canada were being returned in accordance with the agreement that no more than five a month would be sent back.

Among those returned last month was a 30-year-old who left Guyana at the age of 16, after convictions for assault causing bodily harm and conspiracy to traffic in narcotics.

Another was a 44-year-old who left here in 1965 and was deported after convictions for break and enter and larceny and trafficking in narcotics. Gajraj said that the police had referred a number of them to the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security. That ministry had referred some of them to him as they wanted proper identification. He had arranged for them to be issued passports as national identification cards could not be issued to them, since they could only be registered at times prescribed by law.