GUYANA’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has disclosed that some 265 Guyanese were refused entry from CARICOM sister country Trinidad and Tobago in 2014. 

Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, during her Ministry’s year-end review at the Foreign Services Insitute, Shivnarine Chanderpaul Drive, expressed that CARICOM countries have not been forthcoming in providing timely information on Guyanese deportees and entry-refusals.
She compared the performance of CARICOM countries to the United States where she noted that cases of similar nature handled by the United States are done through a process.
Birkett told reporters that the U.S. first verifies that those persons to be deported are in fact citizens of Guyana, which then invokes the attention of Guyana’s embassy in Washington DC to produce records and an official list.

“What we have noticed in some CARICOM countries is that we don’t get that kind of a record,” Birkett said as she bemoaned that she is often informed in the media of cases relating to Guyanese deportations and refusals. This has seen Guyana’s Foreign Ministry possessing inconsistent statistics compared to those which are published by other countries.
“We have seen a decrease in the number of reports to the ministry about hassle at the airports,” she continued, and this was particularly evident in one country which the Minister said was very vocal about their deportees, not only Guyanese, but others as well.
Minister Birkett expressed concern on the effects of actions such as this on the integration process. Recently Trinidad and Tobago’s National Security Minister, Gary Smith, alluded to “alarming statistics” that there was an excess of 100,000 illegal immigrants living in the twin-island republic, of which

25,000 were reported to be Guyanese.
This comes at a time when Trinidadian Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, according to an article in the Trinidad Express, revealed some weeks ago that between 2010 and 2014, statistics have shown that some 700 or so Guyanese were deported from Trinidad. Guyana had the largest number of deportees from the island, Ramlogan said.
Guyana’s Foreign Minister expressed concern at these reports, and said that she has made contact with her Trinidadian counterpart, Winston Dookeran, requesting greater partnership on the timely provision of information.
Birkett condemned what appeared to be a ‘Peter pays for Paul’ policy, where all nationals of a country are branded for the mistakes of a few. This, she said, should be paralleled to the greater works that Guyanese are doing in developing key sectors in CARICOM countries.
Birkett made no bones expressing that this is the first time in her tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister that she has seen “a release on the number of persons being deported, almost as if it’s an achievement.”
Minister Birkett was provided with figures from Guyana Ambassador to CARICOM, Elisabeth Harper, that in 2010, 199 Guyanese were refused entry into Trinidad. This was compared to 345 refusals in 2012, 277 in 2013 and the most recent 265 in 2014 from Trinidad alone.