Last Updated on Saturday, 10 January 2026, 13:20 by Writer
Despite intensified political opposition calls for transparency in talks with the United States (US) to send nationals of third countries to settle in Guyana, President Irfaan Ali on Friday refused to say anything further.
He, instead, relied on a canned statement issued by Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud January 5 saying that Guyana and the US were in productive discussions on a framework of understanding which is consistent with “our national priorities and needs and supportive of the USA objectives.”
“You’ve heard a statement out of the Foreign Secretary. There is nothing to add to that statement at this time,” the President told reporters while in Rosignol, West Coast Berbice when asked whether Guyana and the US had reached agreement on taking in US deportees refused by their own countries.
Leader of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Aubrey Norton on Friday declared that accepting non-Guyanese deportees through deportation was “unacceptable” especially since they are rejects of another society and detrimental to Guyana. “APNU cannot understand the logic behind accepting deportees that another society does not want,” he said.
Mr Norton, a political scientist and former foreign service officer, reasoned that if the nationals were assets, the US would have kept them.
Drawing an environmental parallel, he said the sending of migrants to Guyana would be like sending toxic material to another country. “The question becomes: why would we accept what others do not want? We demand a halt to this insane hurtling to an agreement that is not in our national interest,” he said.
Mr Norton could not say definitively whether the 12-seat APNU would be raising the issue in the National Assembly.
The We Invest in Nationhood and the Forward Guyana Movement said the issue should be taken to the National Assembly as part of a broader framework of transparency.
Meanwhile, he said the US’ removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and taking him to New York to face trial for drugs and weapons charges amounted to the flouting of international law. “Everything that happen should happen within the confines of international law,” he said.
But again, President Ali refused to say anything further on that issue. “I’ve already outlined my position on the statement. I have nothing to add,” he said.
In his January 3rd post on the social media platform X the President said that “stability, respect for law, and democratic transition are critical to the future of Venezuela and the broader Americas.”
Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago are close allies of the US.
The Ali-led administration has heightened its international security and military cooperation with the US in recent weeks.
