Claubian Jean Jacques was all smiles when President Leonel Fern?ndez awarded him a medal for scholastic achievement in his Villa Altagracia public school. But now, reality strikes. To graduate, this 18-year old son of Haitians needs to have a birth certificate, which he doesn’t have and is not progressing on getting from the Dominican civil registry authorities that regard him as a Haitian. Jacques’ parents have a midwife that helped his mother give birth and others who can witnesses he was born in the DR. His parents came in 1979 with a temporary contract to cut sugar cane. Like most Haitians, they stayed on choosing other work and becoming one of thousands of illegal immigrants. The Haitian Constitution recognizes him as a Haitian. But the Dominican Constitution, does not, regardless of his having been born here. According to the Dominican Constitution, all who are born in the DR are Dominicans, except those born of foreign diplomats or persons in transit. The Dominican Migration Department considers his parents persons in transit. Claubian Jean Jacques’s dilemma is one shared by an estimated 70,000 other children born of illegal immigrant Haitian parents.
