A fence from Dajabon To Pedernales

I heard that a fence was in the drawing boards on the Haitian frontier. I personally think that it is about time that the Dominican Republic stepped up and started protecting its sovereignty. If a fence will do anything it will at least make patrolling easier and make it harder to traffic drugs, minors and prostitues.
 

Mirador

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Arayanos

While the border in a geopolitical map is clearly defined, this is not usually the case on the ground, where mixed-nationality populations and settlements make it frequently impossible to determine where one country ends and the other begins. In our situation, we have the Arayanos, a mixed-nationality population with family, culture, and economic ties that overlap both countries, and like Ms. Riravaga says, a physical fence separating both countries will have the effect of a Berlin Wall.
 

NALs

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In certain stretches of the border, there already exist a fence. Of course, nobody crosses through there now because there is just so much open land elsewhere where crossing between the two nations is only a matter of crossing an anckle high river or a slight inhospitable no mans land!

However, a fence might slow down the flow, but it will not be a permanent solution.

As radical as this may seem, a wall similar to what's being built in Israel will greatly diminish the flow of illegals into the country. Just look at Israel for the proof, Palestinian bombings (prior to the death of their leader) were greatly reduced in the israeli areas where the walls were installed.

The only downside to this is that the wall is extremely expensive.
 

Mirador

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Nal0whs, are you proposing a 'Palestinian solution' for our Arayano population?
 

rellosk

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Nal0whs said:
In certain stretches of the border, there already exist a fence. Of course, nobody crosses through there now because there is just so much open land elsewhere where crossing between the two nations is only a matter of crossing an anckle high river or a slight inhospitable no mans land!

However, a fence might slow down the flow, but it will not be a permanent solution.

As radical as this may seem, a wall similar to what's being built in Israel will greatly diminish the flow of illegals into the country. Just look at Israel for the proof, Palestinian bombings (prior to the death of their leader) were greatly reduced in the israeli areas where the walls were installed.

The only downside to this is that the wall is extremely expensive.
I shudder when someone suggests building walls to keep people out. We should be about building bridges, not fences.
 

NALs

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Mirador said:
Nal0whs, are you proposing a 'Palestinian solution' for our Arayano population?
To be honest, I posted prior to reading your post.

However, I'll answer your question.

Building a wall is not akin to actually spliting families, as long that they comply with the law (in this case, not entering the DR illegally). The wall will split the two nations, but will direct most of the migration traffic flows to the official entry/exit points which are four being Dajabon, Elias Pi?a or Comendador, Jimani, and Pedernales.

Arayanos should be given the choice of choosing Dominican or Haitian nationality. Based on their decisions, they might have to apply for a Dominican visa (if they choose to be Haitians) or they should get their passport and other paperwork ready in order to cross the border into Haiti and visit their other families on the other side of the border.

Also, the Haitian market days event that is widespread along border towns should be terminated or at least, done on the Haitian side of the border. Once a Haitian crosses to "sell" his/her goods in a Dominican border town, it would be easier for him/her to simply keep going until he/she reaches Santiago or elsewhere.

It's important to note that these are serious problems with no simple solution, so brainstorming is encouraged.
 

NALs

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rellosk said:
I shudder when someone suggests building walls to keep people out. We should be about building bridges, not fences.
That would be the ideal, but sometimes, life does not allow for such idealism to exist.

Ever wonder why there is so much inequality on earth?

or why socialism and/or communism (perfectly ideal theories and situations) failed?

As I have said multiple times, my support of better handling of the border (whether its by building a wall or simply supplying more troops) is mostly economical. When a country looses its economy, it ceases to be a country.

Sometimes we have to make hard decisions, in this case, be "good" but kill our very own poor by making them and the immigrants even poorer or we try to save those who are currently poor by stoping those would be immigrants.

Sometimes, hard decisions have to be made, unfortunately that is how life functions.

We control better the border and in return, we will be giving every poor Dominican a chance to better his/her economic lot as wages increase. Why will wages increase? Because as the economy grows, demand for unskilled labor to do unskilled jobs (which are always abundant in any economy) will increase and if the number of unskilled people does not grows by much, the price of unskilled labor will rise, thus resulting in higher wages for our own poor.

I don't know about you, but I want my country to develop already.

This will hurt Haiti's attempt to move up (whatever attempt exist), but the truth of the matter is that Santo Domingo only governs or supposedly governs in the best interest of the Dominican man and nobody else.

Yes, Haiti is going to whine and cry and demand the border to open up, but then again, their economy is not the one being threatened with collapse by massive flows of people who are Haiti's government responsibility to feed, not ours.

The same Puerto Rico can say about us, but if the Haitian flow is reduced in the DR, wages among the poor will increase and that in it self, will reduce the number of Dominicans wanting to leave the country and Puerto Rico can learn to relax. Also, this might give the Haitian government a hint that they need to stop whinning to the world of their pitty and misery and start brainstorming for a solution to a problem that they created on their own.

Sure, Americans disrupted and partially contributed to the destruction of the Haitians economy in the 1920s, but everything else has been a result of Haitian doing and nobody else.
 
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Chirimoya

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Nals, your Middle Eastern analogy is wafer-thin. Without going into the rights and wrongs of the situation, the BIG difference is that in one situation you have an army that does its job effectively and doesn't accept bribes from infiltrators, and then you have the Dominican army.

A wall or a fence on its own is worth nothing unless it is backed up by effective enforcement.

And yes, I second the 'building bridges' comment by rellosk.
 

Texas Bill

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The laws governing migration are already active---

It now becomes a matter of enforcement of those law by COMPETENT authority!

Remove the incentives for circumventing those laws and the situation will resolve itself.

Put competent, honest Army, Navy and Police Officers in the enforcement stream and watch the problem virtually dissappear. Provide severe punishment for accepting bribes, "turning your head on illegals", or other complascent acts by civilian enployers and enforce such in the Military and Civil Courts. Only when such drastic measures are taken will the problem be properly addressed.

Solutions are available! Use the solutions effectively! Prosecute the offenders whomever they may be and deport the illegals.

Quit whining and DO something by encouraging and demanding compliance with existing laws and regulatory procedures.

That's my solution, What's YOUR'S????

Texas Bill
 

Chirimoya

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Oh yes, and tell your patriotic fellow countrymen to stop employing Haitians. Supply and demand, remember?
 

rellosk

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Nal0whs said:
...As I have said multiple times, my support of better handling of the border (whether its by building a wall or simply supplying more troops) is mostly economical. When a country looses its economy, it ceases to be a country...

...We control better the border and in return, we will be giving every poor Dominican a chance to better his/her economic lot as wages increase. Why will wages increase? Because as the economy grows, demand for unskilled labor to do unskilled jobs (which are always abundant in any economy) will increase and if the number of unskilled people does not grows by much, the price of unskilled labor will rise, thus resulting in higher wages for our own poor...
Do you think the economy will magically grow when immigration is halted? Do you think that poor Dominicans will suddenly want the jobs that will be vacated by the Haitians? It's my understanding that's why the Haitians were initially allowed in, because the Dominicans didn't want to harvest the sugar cane for the prevailing wage.

In every society problems are blamed on immigrants. They are easy targets. In another thread I mentioned the Know-Nothings who were against the Irish immigrants that were entering the US 150 years ago. Without immigration the US never would have grown to be the economic superpower it was in the 20th century.

I've said my peace, you said yours (both here and in another thread). Neither of us will be able to change the others option. However, if you want to continue, we should move this to the debate forum.


Nal0whs said:
...I don't know about you, but I want my country to develop already...
What I really would like to hear from you is what can be done to improve transparency in the government, policy, army, etc. I think that will go a long way in improving the economy in the DR. Remember you have an election coming up in 2006.
 

Conchman

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I know its off topic, BUT

That wall on the West Bank has produced more hatred towards Israel, as many people now have to go dozens of miles to get to work only 500 yards away where there are official check points. The recent peace in the conflict is due to the Palestinian radicals feeling out the new Palestinian leader after Arafat's death, who has called for a cease fire. They will resume the Palestinian struggle if they think the new Prez is not bringing them any closer to a Palestinian country and the correction of other injustices they claim.

The wall will not bring peace to the area, guaranteed. If anything, since the wall boundaries infringe on Arab territories, it will make a permanent and just peace necessary for the region even more complicated to achieve, similar to the effect of the illegal Israeli settlements in those areas.



Nal0whs said:
In certain stretches of the border, there already exist a fence. Of course, nobody crosses through there now because there is just so much open land elsewhere where crossing between the two nations is only a matter of crossing an anckle high river or a slight inhospitable no mans land!

However, a fence might slow down the flow, but it will not be a permanent solution.

As radical as this may seem, a wall similar to what's being built in Israel will greatly diminish the flow of illegals into the country. Just look at Israel for the proof, Palestinian bombings (prior to the death of their leader) were greatly reduced in the israeli areas where the walls were installed.

The only downside to this is that the wall is extremely expensive.
 

NALs

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Chirimoya said:
Oh yes, and tell your patriotic fellow countrymen to stop employing Haitians. Supply and demand, remember?
Yes, I do remember.

And if the supply does not grow, the demand will have to content itself with the asking price of the current supply!

Yeah! I can see somebody is poised to get the point!

Unfortunately, supply keeps growing allowing demand to reap benefits at such low prices. The supply that once had the courage to ask for higher wages now has to resort to taking a yola to Puerto Rico because we have a new set of supply that will work at extremely low wages!

Get the picture? See why the border should be (well, not closed, that's impossible), but harder to cross?

And, how many troops do we got? Exactly, not enough to cover the entire border from end to end. As such, better to direct migration traffic to certain crossing points along the border (as oppose to having traffic move east all over the border region). This will allow for less troops to be located in those crossing points to check their visas, etc. The pay of those troops will be their current prevailant wage plus the wages of those other troops that will be fired (remember, we want the military to be as small as possible) and that should result in higher wages for the troops securing the entry/exit points and secure their loyalty and voila, the border suddenly becomes less porous!

As the economy continues to grow, the wages at the lower end finally begin to move up rather than down and market capitalism saves the day, for the little guy.

Then as wages for the little guy creeps ever upward and become unsustainable (considering the low skill jobs, etc), then those low paying jobs that desire even lower wages will be allowed to outsource those positions to places like Haiti. That way, we are able to keep our country well off while keeping the desperately poor outside of the nations border (see why the first world is in love with outsourcing).

Of course, prior to such thing, wages of most employed poor Dominicans would have increased and as more money tends to do to people, these people will begin to focus more on maintaining their new wealth by better educating their children, etc etc etc. Thus, when the low paying jobs begin to be outsourced, they won't fall into the hole again.

Don't you just love controlled capitalism, it surely beats uncontrolled capitalism which yields even more poverty and more wealth in fewer hands.
 

NALs

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rellosk said:
Do you think the economy will magically grow when immigration is halted? Do you think that poor Dominicans will suddenly want the jobs that will be vacated by the Haitians? It's my understanding that's why the Haitians were initially allowed in, because the Dominicans didn't want to harvest the sugar cane for the prevailing wage.

In every society problems are blamed on immigrants. They are easy targets. In another thread I mentioned the Know-Nothings who were against the Irish immigrants that were entering the US 150 years ago. Without immigration the US never would have grown to be the economic superpower it was in the 20th century.

I've said my peace, you said yours (both here and in another thread). Neither of us will be able to change the others option. However, if you want to continue, we should move this to the debate forum.


What I really would like to hear from you is what can be done to improve transparency in the government, policy, army, etc. I think that will go a long way in improving the economy in the DR. Remember you have an election coming up in 2006.
This is not about halting immigration. This is simply about controlling the flow of immigrants, big difference.

And by putting such a large obstacle such as a wall in the way, will force most to redirect their crossing border activity to the entry/exit points. Since those areas will have a high presence of military personel who will be well paid, the chances of crossing illegally are greatly reduced.

Maybe its better to head back to Port-au-Prince and apply for a Dominican visa at the embassy afterall!

Listen, if a person is legal, come and go as they please. I don't care who anybody is under such circumstances. Heck, it could even be the horrible Boyer (remember, the one who created the Cibao massacre), even if it was him, if he got his visa and paperwork done, by all means, let him pass. But, if he's not going to adhere to migration laws, well then, we got a problem.

Crossing the border illegally is a crime and as all crimes go, criminals must be punished. Some might say, "well the same can be said of Dominicans entering the US" and I agree.

Criminals must be punished, in this case deportation. But if they are legal, don't even put a finger on them.
 

NALs

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hugh said:
Who will pay for this alleged fence?



Hugh
The same people who are going to pay for the worthless (though impressive on paper) metro, the Faro a Colon, the Panamerican games and every other extremely expensive project that (despite the Faro) has become or will become a white elephant.

The issue in this country is not money (as most would think), we have adequate amounts. The issue is priorities.
 

Ricardo900

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What are you going to do about it!

Nal0whs said:
The same people who are going to pay for the worthless (though impressive on paper) metro, the Faro a Colon, the Panamerican games and every other extremely expensive project that (despite the Faro) has become or will become a white elephant.

The issue in this country is not money (as most would think), we have adequate amounts. The issue is priorities.
If you strongly feel something needs to be done about this border issue, do something. Don't "Talk About It" "Be About It"
Have you;
1. Contact any politicians or authorities who feel passionate about this issue.
2. Drew up a proposal on the cons & pros of a physical barrier i.e. wall
3. Turn the heat up on Leonel by contacting the media or starting a petition.
4. Devised a plan that would fine companies who hire illegals
5. Create a Minuteman Project like the one on the Mexican/US border http://www.minutemanproject.com/
6. etc..............

If you are not part of the solution, than you are part of the problem, now the ball is in your court, we'll be watching ;) ;)

Quote of the Day:
"Give People What They Want Or They Will Take It From You" - Voltaire