Former Dominican ambassador in Washington, D.C., Flavio Dario Espinal says that the Organization of American States Inter-American Human Rights Commission is biased against the Dominican Republic after the country issued the Constitutional Court ruling establishing criteria for granting Dominican nationality. He said that the IACHR has not been fair. He criticized their final report on their visit to the Dominican Republic, saying that the IACHR, “not only does not appraise, but does not even mention the government’s initiatives.”
He advocates support for the Dominican government’s actions for legalizing immigrants. As reported in Hoy, Espinal criticized the lack of balance in the report issued by the organization. Interviewed by journalist Federico Mendez on Esferas de Poder on Sunday, 15 December, he said that the claim that 200,000 people of Haitian descent have been arbitrarily denationalized was untrue. “The Commission knows that it is not true,” said Espinal.
“Unfortunately someone had the brilliant idea of creating that image and that notion has created an image problem for the Dominican Republic,” he said.
He said the government could legally deport anyone who is in the country illegally. At the same time the government has created a program to regularize thousands of people who do not have legal papers. Espinal believes that the IACHR should consider and encourage the actions that seek to bring solutions to problems of this kind to progress in the correct direction.