The Bajan dilemma

Jun 18, 2009 Editorial

Opinion is divided over the action by the Barbadian Government to rid the island of undocumented immigrants, among whom are a large number of Guyanese. Earlier this year, Barbados Prime Minister, David Thompson, announced that his government was moving against the undocumented immigrants.
He said that an amnesty was being afforded to people who were in the country for nine years and more, and that those eligible to regularize their status would be duly processed.

Some Guyanese who had qualified according to the limitation announced by Prime Minister Thompson, expressed reservations, some concluding that the Barbados Government was playing a trick to trap them into coming into the open and so be able to deport them.
It was the same with illegal Guyanese in the United States in the 1980s when the United States Government offered an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Many were afraid to come forward to regularize their status with the result that some are still illegal more than two decades later. Others have run foul of the law and have been deported.

The issue here, though, is not about regularizing the status but about the treatment of the so-called undocumented immigrants. Barbadians have advertised in the local media seeking Guyanese labourers and skilled artisans. And many Guyanese responded.
These people contributed their blood, sweat and tears to help build Barbados; they rented sub-standard accommodation created as the Barbadians set about exploiting them.
There are reports that some of the skilled Guyanese moved into structures that once housed dogs.
The big question now is, “Why should Barbados move against undocumented immigrants who have skills that the country lacks?” The answer is not straightforward, but this action comes at a time when Barbados has suffered a drop in its international credit rating. It also coincides with the global economic crisis that has seen a drop in tourists to that island.

Those who oppose the action by the Barbadian Government are convinced that the foregoing have something to do with what the Barbadians have adopted. Meanwhile, Guyana has been benefitting from remittances from that country. There has already been a drop in remittances from the countries of the north where Guyanese abound.
There is something to all this, though. Some feel that there is a clash of cultures and that Barbadians, who are among the most conservative people in the region, do not take kindly to foreigners seeking to impose other norms of behaviour.

What has not escaped notice is the fact that Guyana is a multi-racial society, so Guyanese of every ethnicity have joined in the migration train to Barbados. But there is a strange thing here and some feel that it borders on racism, although the evidence seems to suggest that the Barbadian Government is not discriminating in its drive to follow through with its campaign against undocumented immigrants.
Indeed, Guyanese of East Indian ancestry would stand out in Barbados more than those of African ancestry, and are therefore more prone to being stopped by the marauding immigration officers. Those of African ancestry are more likely to dodge the net by even imitating the Barbadian accent.
But there will be fallout, because the very society is going to once more turn its attention to Guyana for skilled labour and for Guyanese qualified as nurses and teachers. Already residents on the island are complaining about the government action, because those who modified their homes to accommodate the undocumented tenants are saddled with the mortgage and empty houses.

The transport system is suffering from a reduction in fares and constructions are being halted because a lack of labour. This is a case of cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face but for all this, a country has a right to enforce its laws and should not be the subject of criticisms when it attempts to do so.
Barbados is in a Catch-22 – damned if it does and damned if it does not. Meanwhile, Guyana can do no more than welcome its citizens who, on arrival, are processed like any deportee. For them, this is a double whammy because they are fingerprinted and photographed after a long period in police custody in the land of their birth. On this occasion the Guyana Government may wish to consider a waiver of this protocol.

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