Diario Libre’s editorial today, Monday 10 March, comments that the country should be pleased when people ask about the Constitutional Court Ruling 168-13 and the Illegal Immigrant Legalization Plan. Adriano Miguel Tejada says this is an opportunity to present our side of the story. “Everyone can understand whatever they want, but after listening to our arguments they will understand our dilemma better,” he writes.
The first question is always why are all the immigration cases being analyzed individually. The explanation is very simple: there have been so many falsifications of civil state documents and the ID document (cedula) that all the cases cannot be dealt with together.
He says that everyone asks why not just give a general amnesty for all the cases. He gives two very powerful reasons: first, no Dominican law covers a civil state amnesty, that is a public order matter; second, the announcement of an amnesty would open the floodgates for thousands of Haitians who are in Haiti to cross the Dominican border. To prevent this, border guards would have to shoot and this would become an international crisis.
Tejada writes there is no risk of statelessness, and that the government, despite its delay, has assured that the due process and human rights of those affected would be respected.
“It is sad that we were not able to explain this to Vice President Biden,” writes Tejada. “He would have left thinking differently.”
http://www.diariolibre.com/opinion/2014/03/10/i517921_explicaciones.html