Minister of Foreign Relations Hugo Tolentino Dipp expressed his concern for the increase in illegal migration of Haitians to the DR. "A small country like ours does not have the resources to cope with half a million or a million Haitians. The problem is that the DR cannot accept the flow of Haitians as it is occurring, that is not possible, it is too big a social burden," he said. Nevertheless, he commented that the case of illegal Haitians who are already living in the DR needs to be handled with tact, intelligence and according to international rights norms. Most Haitians make their way to the DR crossing the mountains and rivers that divide the two countries. Others use human contraband agents that know who to bribe to get their human cargo to towns where they expect to find jobs. Hoy newspaper says that migration of undocumented Haitians in Santiago has increased and that the local migration authorities do not have a budget to handle the flow. Haitian migration increases in direct proportion to the increase of political crisis, violence in Haiti.
