Minister of Foreign Relations Eduardo Latorre said, during a visit to El Siglo newspaper, that a national consensus should be reached when finding a solution to the Haitian migration problem, because it affects the entire Dominican society. "The problem is one of structural character. When there is a great disparity between neighboring countries the inhabitants of the country with less opportunities tend to move to the country with more opportunities," he said. He commented that this occurs along the Mexican border with the US and the best technology in the world has not been able to stop this migration. He said the Haitian problem is a complex one. For example, how can you declare a child when the parents have no legal identification papers of any kind? Furthermore, he commented that if you have lived in the US for 40 years illegally, if at that time you are caught, you will be deported. He said that while no one sees anything wrong with the DR doing this, the international community feels the DR cannot do the same. He explained this is a 30 or 40 year old problem, that is the result of the oversight of the various Dominican governments, that have let it become bigger and bigger. He commented that the Fernández government has sought to improve relations with Haiti as part of its foreign policy objective of improving relations with all its regional neighbors – Haiti, Cuba, Caribbean and Central America. He said Haitian acting ambassador, Guy Lamothe has recognized that relations between both countries have never been better. He explained that in the case of the Haitians, the DR has gone from confrontation and distrust, to times of dialogue and harmonizing, which, he said, is a step forward. He said relations began to improve since the time when President Rene Preval and then President Balaguer formed the Bilateral Haitian-Dominican Commission to discuss crucial issues. This commission has nine sub-commissions that meet once a year. Nevertheless, he said that these are long drawn out negotiations. In the migration aspect, the DR has already accepted to issue IDs to undocumented Haitians so they can port some kind of identification. Most illegal Haitian aliens have no legal documentation of any kind, as it is not a practice for the indigent poor to secure legal documents in Haiti.
