The Central Electoral Board (JCE) is required to present its inventory of birth registrations from 1929 to 2007 to establish the number of children of foreigners registered in the country in compliance with the mandate of the National Immigration Council that gave it a 30-day period to deliver the report.
Coordinator of the Commission of Civil Registry Officers, Cesar Feliz, said that on the basis of this information the National Foreigner Legalization Plan would be drafted to comply with Constitutional Court Ruling 168-2013 that confirms that children of foreigners who have lived in the country with irregular status do not automatically acquire Dominican nationality. The inventory will cover 180 civil registry offices located nationwide. The form will list the details of the birth, the nationality of the parents, and kind of document used for the declaration.
The JCE announced yesterday, Sunday 27 October that the inventory would also include the foreigners who have been registered in the Foreigners’ Book, the Civil Registry and the ID master list.
The National Immigration Council announced that the National Foreigners Legalization Plan would be ready in 60 days. The plan implements Art. 151 of the Immigration Law 285 dating to 2004.
A total of 58,914 civil registry books need to be reviewed.
The Dominican Republic has decided that all foreigners in the country should have an ID with fingerprints to regulate their status here and will be granting temporary residency to all who qualify according to the plan. This is for security purposes and to facilitate the individual to carry out any local transactions, including receiving health and education services. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Haitians have crossed the border into the Dominican Republic without any documentation whatsoever.
The President ordered the Central Electoral Board (JCE) to present in 10 days a report on the “impact of the ruling on the foreigners that are registered in the civil registry system” and the feasibility of identifying those that were irregularly issued among millions of birth certificates issued from 1929 to present.