Guyana not a “source country” of illegal migration to US – Secretary of State

As the United States (US) continues its mass deportation to rid the country of undocumented migrants, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Guyana is not a major source country for illegal migration into the US.
The Donald Trump Administration’s crack down on illegal migrants in the US had sparked widespread fears among Guyanese migrants – both legal and illegal – in that country.
Amidst these uncertainties, however, Secretary of State Rubio, who was in Guyana on Thursday as part of a three-nation Caribbean tour, said Guyana is not a major source country of illegal migrants.
“From the perspective of Guyana… [it] is not a source country of migration to the United States per se – illegal migration,” the US Government official stated.
Only last month, US Ambassador to Guyana, Nichole Theriot, had assured that there will be no mass deportation of Guyanese who might be illegal in the US but said that routine deportations that have been ongoing for decades will continue.
Moreover, the Guyana Government has already said it would accept any Guyanese who are deported.

However, while the US does not see Guyana as a major source of illegal migrants, it recognises that there has been an influx of foreign nationals here, and wants to work with the Guyanese Government to ensure that criminal elements do not enter the country.
“We want to work with you on that… I mean, obviously, because of the combination of your growing economy, labour needs, and your geography, you have been a place where a lot of people have come in, and I think you want it to be the right people, right? So, I think if we have information that someone has entered your country who has bad intentions, we want to be able to share that with your Government because you don’t want that.”

“You don’t want those – if we have information on a Tren de Aragua gang member from Venezuela, we want to make sure that we have collaboration and we’re sharing that information. If we have information that some narcotrafficker is taking up shop here and has decided to try to turn this into a base of operation, which could become – could lead to violence and warfare here, gang warfare, we want to be able to share that with you. We want to prevent these problems from happening,” Rubio stated.
Consequently, Guyana and the US cemented such collaboration through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday to deepen security cooperation and address regional challenges, including countering narcotics trafficking and transnational organised crime.
Under this new security mechanism, which was inked by Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Hugh Todd and Secretary of State Rubio at the State House in Georgetown, Guyana and the United States will strengthen information sharing, synthetic drug detection, transnational organised crime investigations and prosecutions; and military-to-military cooperation.
“Unfortunately, you’re getting a lot of people and not everybody that comes here – I mean, most people are probably here to work hard and so forth, but not everyone. So, if we have information that someone is in your country that we know is a bad person, we want to be able to share it with you. We want to be able to share it with you very quickly. So that sort of information sharing has to be a cornerstone of this security agreement that we’ve signed today and want to continue to expand upon,” the US Secretary of State pointed out.
Only earlier this month, Guyana’s Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn had disclosed that local authorities have already been weeding out suspected agents of the Venezuelan Government.
“We don’t want people to come here and be sleepers [secret agents]. We know that there are some sleepers here; we’ve put out a few already,” Benn stated while addressing senior officers at the opening of the Guyana Police Force’s (GPF) Inspectors and Sergeants Conference 2025 on March 12.
The Home Affairs Minister’s comments came just two days after a boatload of Venezuelans who illegally arrived in the country at the Abraham Zuil beach along the Essequibo Coast, Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) were deported after failing to stop at an immigrant checkpoint.
According to the GPF, the boatload of Venezuelan migrants comprising 75 individuals including nine children, nine women, and 57 men, arrived in a 45-foot by 8-foot boat, powered by two 75hp Yamaha outboard engines.
Minister Benn had told the Guyana Times, via a telephone interview, that following their interception by local law enforcement authorities, the migrants underwent a screening process. Those who could establish familial ties in Guyana were allowed in the country while those who did not make such connection were deported to Venezuela.
“They were to be returned across the border the same day. There was an inability to do it in sufficient time and they were housed and fed overnight and they departed at 4am this morning [Tuesday, March 11],” the Home Affairs Minister explained.
Meanwhile, Minister Benn has made it clear that Guyana remains open to providing humanitarian assistance to migrants seeking refuge in Guyana. However, those migrants, must enter the country legally.
“If they want to come to Guyana, they have to go to the immigration port of entry to the immigration officer be screened and get an ED charge. If they don’t do that and their reaching all the way to Parika and those places we will send them back. They only way if we screen them and look at it, is if we can say for certain they are returning Guyanese,” Benn added.