President signs order imposing visa requirement for Haitians entering Guyana

President Dr Irfaan Ali has signed an Immigration Revocation Order, effectively removing Haiti from the list of countries that enjoyed visa-free travel to Guyana.

Haiti was in January 2019 added to the list through an Order under the Immigration Act by former President David Granger.

With this order being revoked by President Ali, this means that Haitians will no longer enjoy the automatic six-month stay upon arrival in the country.

Attorney General Anil Nandlall had announced that visa restrictions for Haitian and Cuban nationals are in the works in an effort to clamp down on a suspected human trafficking ring in the country.

According to data seen by this publication, as many as 9,239 Haitians entered Guyana in 2020. However, only 717 are documented as leaving.

So far for 2021, 1378 Haitians were documented entering Guyana but only 165 were shown to have left.

In fact, for the last six years, over 38,000 Haitian nationals are unaccounted for.