Opposition Members of Parliament, Sherod Duncan of A Partnership for National Unity and Amanza Walton of the Forward Guyana Movement have demanded that there be full disclosure of the migration pact between the governments of Guyana and the United States that allows Guyana to accept third-country deportees from the US.

Over the weekend, the government announced that it has concluded a migration cooperation framework with the Government of the United States of America. As part of the framework, Guyana will receive a limited, vetted number of skilled and non-criminal individuals through the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Assisted Voluntary Return Programme.

So far, four nationals of Cuba and two nationals of Afghanistan arrived here under the agreement, but the Opposition Parliamentarians are now demanding answers.

APNU’s Sherod Duncan noted that in recent times Guyana has faced a series of serious security and public-safety concerns, including firearms and ammunition seizures, violent crime, border-security pressures, migration enforcement issues, and continuing weaknesses in the timely publication of reliable security information.

He said these issues must be looked at in totality in relation to the government’s announcement.

“My concern is not with the nationality of these persons, and this matter must not be reduced to hostility towards migrants. My concern is with how the Government conducts the affairs of this country and the accountability owed to Guyanese and to Parliament. We are told that this arrangement followed months of negotiations, will operate for one year, and permits Guyana to receive persons who are neither Guyanese nor necessarily being returned to their countries of nationality. Yet it was finalized, and implementation began before the country received any meaningful explanation of its terms,” Duncan stated.

Duncan said the nation still does not know the full extent of the agreement, including the maximum number of migrants Guyana has agreed to receive, their precise immigration status, whether they will be permitted to work, reporting requirements and how background checks were conducted.

“These are not new concerns for me. I have already raised questions in Parliament about migration management, work permits, the nationalities and sectors associated with foreign workers, and the security and staffing of Guyana’s riverain and other entry points. As Guyana’s economy expands and migration increases, Government cannot continue managing immigration, naturalisation, work permits and border entry through fragmented announcements and administrative discretion,” Duncan stated.

For her part, Forward Guyana Leader, Amanza Walton said the agreement raises some serious concerns.

She noted that Guyana is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, and has no national asylum legislation.

She said while she has repeatedly called for a comprehensive migration governance framework, grounded in the IOM’s own Guyana Needs Assessment and subsequent research on the country’s readiness to manage this kind of arrangement, those calls fell on deaf ears.

Such a framework is desperately needed with this new agreement, she said.

MP Walton said the manner in which the agreement became known to the Guyanese public is itself a serious concern.

“The Government’s haste to conclude this agreement has left the domestic legal framework completely neglected, further jeopardizing both the individuals it now brings into the country and Guyana’s own standing as a State capable of managing the obligations it signs onto. The Government must publicly disclose the agreement in full. It must be laid in Parliament at the earliest opportunity,” Walton stated.

The Guyana Government announced the agreement, one day after receiving the first six third-country deportees from the US.

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