Fiscal reports coming out of the United States Visa Office, have shown that over 23,000 relatives of Guyanese emigrants, have been issued with permanent status visas from 2010 through 2014.For the past five years, Guyana has registered thousands of permanent visas issuances each year. The lowest figure from 2010 to 2014 was registered as 4,Wholesale Jerseys China,394 in 2012. The highest was 5,185 visas in 2010.Each year, a recurring trend is seen; the Immediate Relatives (IR) and Family Preference (FP) categories register the highest numbers of visas for Guyana. The other categories – Employment Preference, Diversity Immigrants and Special Immigrants – registered low numbers.From 2010 to 2014, a total of 23,907 permanent visas were issued to Guyanese: 5,185 in 2010; 4,934 in 2011; 4,394 in 2012; 4,750 in 2013; and 4,644 in 2014.From this, the total number of (IR) issued with visas for the past five years was 7,212, approximately 30.1 per cent of the total number issued. This category is specifically for certain immigrant relatives of US citizens including spouses, unmarried and under 21 year old children and parents of US citizens.The number was significantly higher for the FP category; here, 16,557 visas were issued, approximately 69.3% of the total number issued in five years. Family Preference visas are broken into 4 subcategories and cater for family members who are not immediate relatives. The visas in this category are subject to annual numerical limits.The other three categories registered only 138 visa issuances in five years.Meanwhile, in the 15 member states of CARICOM, Guyana has consistently ranked highly in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in the number of permanent visas issued to it.Further, over the past five years Guyana has been consistently topped by only two CARICOM countries: Haiti and Jamaica. From 2010 to last year, 73,466 permanent visas were issued to Haiti while 54,963 were issued to Jamaica. Guyana came third with its 23,907. Trinidad and Tobago followed far behind with 7,438 permanent visas in the reviewed period.For Haiti, the IR and FP categories accounted for 73,305 of the total visas issued; IR accrued 32,623 visas (approximately 44%) while FP earned 40,682 visas (approximately 55%).Similarly in Jamaica, these categories took up much of the issued visas in the 5 year period; the IR category had 27,130 visas (approximately 49%) while the FP category had 27,246 visas (approximately 50%).However, it must be noted that both Haiti and Jamaica have much larger populations than Guyana; in Haiti, the population stands at about 10.3M people, while in Jamaica the population is around 2.7M. Guyana’s population is just about 745,000 persons.During a recent interview, Charge d’Affaires of the United States Embassy, Bryan Hunt, opined that Guyana has a higher than average rate of migration when compared to its size. This is in comparison with other countries of similar economic status and population.He further said that Guyana’s figures do not necessarily mean that those that have been granted visas have “wiped the Guyana dirt from their feet”; many of them, he said, spent most of their time in Guyana and only travel to keep the green card alive. With this, they are able to enjoy dual citizenship. |