Guyana/US crafting agreement on deportees
Stabroek News
January 5, 2003
The Guyana government expects to resume negotiations with the US government on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) related to the deportation of Guyanese nationals who have breached US immigration laws.
Foreign Minister Rudy Insanally told Stabroek News on Friday that his ministry is studying the response of the United States administration to the Guyana government's comments of a draft memorandum.
Negotiations on the MOU commenced after the Guyana government in November 2001 yielded to US government demands that it issue travel documents for 113 Guyanese nationals awaiting deportation and who were without a valid passport.
The US government pressured the Guyana government by imposing a ban in October 2001 on the issue of non-immigrant visas to Guyana government officials and their families to travel to the US, either on government business or for personal travel. The ban was lifted after the government complied with the US request for the travel documents.
Stabroek News understands too that the Guyana government would like to see the MOU cover the sort of assistance that the US could provide to help the deportees reintegrate into Guyanese society. It would also like to see assistance to the police to help it address the security considerations that arise as a result of the presence of criminal deportees schooled in the ways of the criminal underworld of North American cities. However, this newspaper understands that these aspects are unlikely to be entertained in the MOU now being negotiated, as it would require the commitment of resources which the US administration would first have to identify.
Guyana's concern about the return of criminal deportees from North America has been aggravated by the wave of violent crime which has gripped the country since February. Deportees have been associated with some of the crimes, according to the police, directly or indirectly and/or by their involvement in the disposal of the proceeds of these crimes. The police reported that some 500 deportees had been returned here up to mid-December.
Last month the Guyana embassy in Washington said for the period January to the second week in December it had issued 210 travel documents for Guyanese awaiting deportation who had no valid passports. But Guyana's Ambassador to the US, Dr Odeen Ishmael, told Stabroek News that he had no way of knowing how many of the nationals for whom the documents were issued had arrived in Guyana. He also said the persons for whom documents were issued late last month and so far this month may not have even left the US. The travel documents issued by the embassy are valid for three months from the date of issue. Ambassador Ishmael said the US Immigration and Nationality Service has not informed the embassy of the number of Guyanese at present awaiting deportation.
