Jagdeo told reporters that he disagreed with the way the missionaries, mainly U.S. citizens, were briefly detained last week, but he said that their work permits were expired and immigration rules had to be enforced in the small nation on South America's north shoulder.

"I didn't think, frankly speaking, that we needed to round people up. It is not the image of Guyana that we want to portray, particularly where it concerns religious people. But the police have to enforce the immigration laws of our country," he said in the capital, Georgetown.

Some government officials have said privately that ruling party leaders felt the Mormons were too close to opposition figures and also were wary of the church's independent charity work in the interior.

"Some officials had become uncomfortable with them around," Donald Ramotar of the governing People's Progressive Party suggested last week.

Jagdeo declined to comment on such statements, saying only that Guyana is "very welcoming, but we also have laws."

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Carolyn Rodrigues said the United States has asked Guyanese authorities to clarify rules for renewing work permits so that similar incidents with U.S. missionaries can be avoided in the future.

The main opposition party said the roundup of the missionaries denied the church workers due process and set a bad example as Guyana complains to neighboring countries about the deportation of its own citizens.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been sending missionaries to this former British colony for more than 20 years. About 100 of them are now in Guyana, many of them deep in the country's interior, where the government has little presence.

Calls made Friday to church officials in Guyana and Salt Lake City were not immediately returned.