Guyana cautious of foreign agents posing as migrants

President Dr Irfaan Ali has indicated that his Government is cautious of the possibility of foreign agents infiltrating the country under the guise of being migrants, but noted that systems are in place to ensure the nation’s national integrity remains protected.
The President was on Monday asked to respond to concerns of foreign agents infiltrating the country under the guise of migrants. This issue was raised some time ago by National Security Advisor Captain Gerry Gouveia.
Gouveia had previously posited that: “You could understand the security dilemma we face that in the migrants could be embedded Venezuelan agents and so this is not something that we don’t appreciate, that we are looking at as well as we open our arms with compassion and with humanity.”

According to President Ali, this is something the Government is actively giving its attention.
“I want to assure you that, while we are fulfilling our international obligations that those realities are very, very uppermost in terms of our priority and there is a mechanism that we are working on information and ensuring that our borders remain secure and that our national integrity is not infiltrated in any way, shape or form.”
“I won’t say that people are being screened but what I would say is that we have an active information platform, as any other country. We have to analyse internal threats, we have to analyse external threats and that analysis is ongoing…and I believe we have enough information at our disposal to say that we are comfortable,” the President said on Monday.
There are 21,704 registered migrants in Guyana but it is estimated that there are over 30,000 living in the country. Venezuelan migrants seeking refuge in Guyana are being encouraged to present themselves to immigration authorities to get registered in order to benefit from services offered by the Government.
In Guyana, all children of migrants, legal and illegal, from Venezuela and other countries are allowed full access to be enrolled in the public school system within the host communities, and benefit from Government-funded support programmes including school feeding programmes, school uniform vouchers, and the “Because We Care” cash grants given to all students enrolled in both public and private schools throughout Guyana to support education-related expenses of families.
In some communities, near the border with Venezuela, Spanish interpreters have been trained to help the teachers in the schools. In fact, for this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA), papers were translated in Spanish for the 287 Spanish-speaking students who wrote the exams. (G3)