In a response to an editorial in Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Dia newspaper, the Dominican ambassador in Washington, D.C., Anibal de Castro, makes the point that the Dominican government has gone beyond what is normal in immigration matters. “Nobody is being asked for documentation to receive free health and education services in the Dominican Republic. What would be a scandal in any other country, the dedication of 18% of the total public health budget to foreigners, is accepted in the Dominican Republic as a gesture of solidarity and understanding.”
He says that the regularization of the status of undocumented foreigners ordered by the ruling goes beyond what happens in the US and other countries with undocumented foreigners. “In France, for example, they have just passed a law to expel people who are undocumented. It matters, then, what President Danilo Medina has promised: that this plan will be implemented with strict adherence to human rights and without damaging anyone’s dignity.”
In the letter, Ambassador de Castro writes that a recent review of the civil registry books since 1929 revealed that only 13,672 Haitians have obtained their Dominican citizenship irregularly, in response to the El Dia editorial writer who said that 250,000 human beings would be denationalized. He goes on to say that a previous decision by the Supreme Court of Justice in 2005 confirmed the practice, common in the Dominican Republic, of not issuing citizenship to the children of foreigners who are in the country illegally. It is estimated that over half a million Haitians are living in the Dominican Republic, many of whom came in with a work permit and overstayed.
The government has said that citizenship will only be revoked in cases where the audit has proved that it was obtained fraudulently.
“In the United States if fraud is demonstrated, nationality will be revoked,” he writes. He stresses that there is no basis for saying that hundreds of thousands of people will be denationalized, as Dominican courts have established that in no way a right can be based on an irregularity.
See the El Dia editorial here: www.elnuevodia.com/editorial-unvergonzosofalloconstitucional-1639591.html
See the Anibal de Castro answer in Spanish here: http://www.dr1.com/forums/government/138645-disputing-misperceptions-constitutional-court-ruling-168-13-a-3.html