Down and out in Georgetown
-Destitute deportee is a stranger in this land
Stabroek News
June 15, 2003
Ian Blackmoore, 36, is destitute: he sleeps where night catches him and gets money for food by doing odd jobs around Stabroek Market.
He was deported from the United States in November 2001 after living there for thirty years, and since then has been unable to find a regular job or lodgings in a country where he is treated like an alien.
He also wants some means of identification so he can gain employment and transact any business, and says the government needs to do more for deportees.
He told Stabroek News earlier last week that he had left Guyana when he was six and moved with his parents to Brooklyn where he lived for 20 years before going to live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prior to his deportation he worked as a forklift operator and painter. He graduated from high school but has no particular skill. For all the years he worked in the US he now feels he is entitled to social security benefit.
He was incarcerated in Atlanta, Georgia for being in possession of an unlicensed firearm. He said he had bought the firearm to protect himself.
He said that initially he had spent 15 days in jail for the offence but got out on bail. On returning to court, he said that based on the lawyer’s advice to finish the case early he pleaded guilty which meant a one year sentence and automatic deportation.
After being sentenced to one year, he said that he spent “two years awaiting deportation... two years just waiting.”
In prison, he said that the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) officials told him that he would have to go through orientation and would be provided with a job in Guyana.
Instead, on his return “all I met with was disrespect from everybody from the time they heard me speak,” he said referring to his accent. He said that this disrespect started from the airport and continued at police headquarters, Eve Leary; he still experiences it generally from people who see him coming for their jobs.
He said, “this is the country that I was born in and they treat me like an outcast. I look for work and they tell me they don’t want no deportee around. They don’t want no criminals around. It is just disrespect. I never committed any crime in this country. A few days ago I stopped by a stand to buy a cigarette; a lady said `you move from here.’ I don’t understand all that fancy talk. Talk politely like a Guyanese.”
“I went to the wharf to get a work. The guys tell me not to come here. You’re a Yankee. What you coming back here looking for work instead of coming back to build a business and give us work. They just make you feel even worse... it’s like breaking your spirits.”
They tell him that if they had the opportunity to live and work in the USA, they would not squander that opportunity: “But to come back here after prison is like double jeopardy. I am deported, separated from family. This is home but not home.”
He said reports in the newspapers and on television claim that the majority of people who commit crimes are deportees. “In my opinion the majority of them who commit the crimes are people who born and raise here... who never left the country. I did not come to the country with an AK-47 or anything like that. I don’t even want to see a weapon.”
He has been “living in the markets, sleeping on the stands. fetching bags, peeling eddoes, cleaning, sweeping and doing things to stay alive.” Some days when he cannot find any odd job he goes to the shelter on East Street for food and clothing as well.
He claims he has no relatives in Guyana. His mother had a friend who lived in West Ruimveldt, in the area where he spent his early childhood first, with whom he was supposed to live. But the friend migrated to London leaving him stranded.
Since he has been in Guyana, he said he has been trying to get an identification card to receive funds from his parents and friends in the US. “Two weeks ago,” he said, “my parents sent me US$200.” But when he went to the remittance service “they told me that even if the President himself went with me, they could not give me the money.”
At the National Registration Centre, he said the officials there told him that he could not get an identification card until the next voter’s registration drive. “They told me I got to get a passport.” However, he said he does not even have a birth certificate. He says the travel documents which he used to enter the country were taken away from him by the local authorities.
Asked whether he had applied for a birth certificate, he said that he had obtained a green application form, filled it in and submitted it. On making inquiries at the Guyana Registry, he said he had been told that they could not find his application. “I don’t know what else to do. I had an original copy in the USA but the US authorities asked me for it and for whatever reason they never give it back.” He added that even if he applied now he had no fixed place of abode for the birth certificate to be posted to.
He said he has no friends in Guyana. “All my friends and relatives are in the USA. I have a wife (American by birth) and two kids. It is very stressful coming back to a country you know nothing about.”
Asked about keeping in touch with his relatives back in the US, Blackmoore said that sometimes he would make collect calls, “but it is expensive back in the US. So I work in the market then I go to the internet to make calls, just to keep in touch with them so as to keep my spirits up.”
He sometimes meets with other deportees who recognise him because of his accent. “I talk with them. They say they are going through the same thing. They have no family here. One or two do have ID cards. Their family sends them barrels and money. They may give me a dollar or two. That’s it.”
He said all he wanted was a stable job. “I want to get my life back on track,” and for his sons, aged seven and nine to visit him during the summer vacation.
Blackmoore feels that after running around to try to get his life back in order, he is now convinced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs cannot help him and other deportees, but only the President can do something. He said he was not going to lose faith in God and as his mother told him it was probably God’s way of telling him that he needed to reflect and improve on his life.
He said President Jagdeo “could do lot more to better our situation than just bringing us from Eve Leary and dropping us off into the wild. Some of us don’t even have families here. So what are we going to do? Just walk down to big market and fetch bags all day? I prefer to have a job. Some people in the market just work you then pay you $20. How am I supposed to survive on $20? A lot of times the work is strenuous. I am not saying I can’t handle hard work but the abuse of labour without proper pay is exploitation and disrespect.”
He stressed the need for some provision to be put in place for deportees. “There’s a lot more people who I left in prison but when they return here there wouldn’t be no place for them. What will happen with them? There was one guy I recalled who killed himself in prison. He said he preferred to die than come back here.”
