In today’s issue of El Dia, Monday 7 October, the newspaper focuses on the order for the implementation of the plan to regularize the status of Haitians who have lived in the country for years. This was ordered in the Constitutional Court ruling that upholds the decision that children born to parents without legal status are not entitled to Dominican nationality. Most of the Haitians who have migrated to the Dominican Republic over the years have not been able to regularize their status and become legal immigrants, mainly because of a lack of cooperation from the Haitian embassy in the country. The few who have secured legal identification, now face the revocation of their status on the grounds that the IDs were obtained fraudulently.
The problem is that most of the Haitians migrating to the Dominican Republic do not have legal status in Haiti and therefore do not have any documentation for starting the process. In Haiti, most people do not have legal documentation.
El Dia reports on the case of Ruben Cheri, who finished high school in the Dominican Republic and would like to regularize his status and have legal paperwork. He said that the plan should start with the children of illegal migrants living here as well as with their parents. “If the plan helps us get paperwork, that would be great,” he told El Dia.
Another Haitian, who gave his name as Victor Edesse, said he has two sons who were born at the Luis Eduardo Aybar and now are 15 and 4 years old. He said the hospital only issued a certificate of live birth. He said he has been living here for 33 years and has tried unsuccessfully to regularize his status. He said the Haitian embassy makes things difficult and he has not been able to get paperwork in Haiti either.