Activist Melissa Atwell-Holder vows to continue her advocacy following her release from a U.S. immigration detention center, alleging political interference in her arrest and detention.
Atwell-Holder was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed on a $7,500 bond after an immigration hearing.
In a statement released on her social media platform today, Atwell-Holder laid the blame for her detention at the feet of the Guyana Government and the lobbying firm it hired in the United States.
Atwell-Holder said the personal information that was revealed through political activists could not have been known unless there was someone on the inside of the US bureaucracy feeding this information to a lobby firm which in turn passed that information to PPP sources.
Information on her arrest was released to the public by persons closely aligned to the government two weeks ago.
“No one in Guyana could have known so quickly that I was being detained and taken to the ICE office at that hour in the morning. No one could have known my US identification number unless it was leaked from the inside and passed to a lobbying firm which in turn passed it to the PPP operatives” Atwell-Holder said.
According to her the People’s Progressive Party activist who called ICE specifically referred to the two-day overstay which was the loophole identified by the lobby firm, which she said shows coordination at the highest level.
She questioned who instructed persons associated with the ruling People’s Progressive Party government to report her marriage more than twenty-five times to immigration as a ‘business wedding.
During her hearing last week, Justice Francis Mwangi questioned her arrest after it was confirmed by the Justice Department that she had the necessary approvals and was awaiting the issuance of her green card.
According to Atwell-Holder, she will not be silenced, as she said the PPP has made her bigger than before. She explained that while in detention she has received overwhelming support from major international organisations as she vowed to continue exposing government corruption in Guyana.
The government has repeatedly denied that it had anything to do with Atwell-Holder’s detention.