More info is needed on legal and illegal migrants

Dear Editor,

Almost daily, I pass a caption related to Guyana’s immigrant presence(s). There seems to be one problem after another, from political standpoints. I, also, have a few questions and concerns of my own. Let’s see how things look.

To put matters mildly, I sense a, shall we say, discomfort, from the political corners. On the government’s part, there is a lack of a muscular posture on the number of foreigners living here. First, how many are here? Second, how much is from where? Third, where are they (meaning in country or elsewhere)? Fourth, how many do they add up to? And fifth, what extrapolations, if any, could be made as to the quantity of undocumented foreigners also living here?

With the last question in mind, I think it may not be unreasonable to ponder that, to err on the small side, it could be twice that 9,000 number made public as to Venezuelans alone. Now 9,000 is already over 1% of the tiny domestic population. Double that and the percentage climbs to somewhere around 2.5%. Now that is a subgroup with which much can be done, depending on one’s objectives.

My own questions are: what about the number of illegals? What is the real number? What is the real number when all external localities are considered? I say this because, like illegal firearms, no one knows for sure how many are around. This much is known though: there are plentiful. We do know that the number of obviously foreign folks (for emphasis: obviously foreign in more ways than one) encountered in passing, and this is in the city alone, can be numerous at times. This makes me wonder about the communities closer to the various borders, especially Venezuela with its pressures.

Staying with government and current presences and unaccounted-for influxes, I go further. I concede that the next point may be considered premature, perhaps, improper. But I persist, given that oil is a known magnet, and that this country is surrounded on the outside by upheavals, natural troubles, and national challenges on many fronts, how many more could be preparing to pay a visit? A permanent one? Usually that is not a problem; nor does anyone care during non-electoral times. Today, it is anything, but that kind of time. Hence, the news pieces about conjectures, challenges as to craftiness, and continuing clamours about fouls in the making.

To address comprehensively is out of the running. We don’t have money for a wall; nor do we have anything resembling a wall of official people anywhere. When that oil starts flowing, we could be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers. From a combined employment, law enforcement, and social services perspective, this could be trouble. I sense some in the offing. It wouldn’t take much to diminish us.

The current more than 1% of the local population of known Venezuelans is an indication. Add Brazilians, Cubans, Chinese, Haitians, Bahamians, Indians, Europeans, and the other seekers of relief and fortune, as well as the intrigue from the Caricom community, and it could be an overpowering deluge. I think I am getting ahead of myself and the moment. But I table as a thought…. Nothing jingoistic or protectionist should be inferred. Recall that I, too, am a migrant; that includes here and wherever else.

Moving over to the opposite side of the political landscape, the opposition has been loud, suspicious, caustic, and even apprehensive over the presence of what it thinks it knows, but maybe really doesn’t know as to magnitude or intents. It has been efficient and unrelenting in condemnations of what it perceives, from its political speculations, to be Guyana’s own migrant invasion(s) for perverse electoral purposes. Even if isn’t, there is no better head on which to place that loaded basket of racial goodies. Even if it knows better, the opportunity is too good to let pass by abegging. And even if it has satisfied itself that no mischief is afoot, it is sound politics, in what is now a confirmed national lunatic fringe cum asylum, to keep the pot boiling. It must be worth the trouble to watch government putter and feel its way around this one.

In addition to my own qualms that I shared earlier, I remember writing sometime ago about something that occurred some eighty years ago in Europe. There was that heavy German presence in the section of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland. It became the grounds from which a world of trouble was spawned. My point is that, while warmth and understanding are due distressed neighbours, a sizable enough migrant presence from those shores with our borders could lead to the unthinkable down the road. Of course, in view of the calibre (and present priority of concerns) of local politicians, this is not a disturbance, as they have bigger fish to fry. As in elections supremacy, and perpetuation of the usual nonsense.

Yours faithfully,

GHK Lall