President Danilo Medina met with the Minister of the Interior and Police Jose Ramon Fadul (Monchy) and the President’s Legal Advisor, Cesar Pina Toribio yesterday Wednesday 19 March to discuss the draft naturalization bill. Pina Toribio told the press that no decisions had yet been made. Apparently, President Medina has taken the lead in the discussions after some government officials disagreed with the draft that Minister of the Presidency Gustavo Montalvo was planning to present to Congress. El Dia reports that the difference is that the version presented by Montalvo would automatically issue Dominican citizenship to children of undocumented foreigners born in the country, which would have clashed with Constitutional Court Ruling 168-13. It also created concern because as drafted, the bill would encourage mass immigration from Haiti because any foreigner who could find two people to testify that they had been born here would receive Dominican citizenship. The draft does not require any other proof. The dissenting government officials have presented another bill that would be in line with the Constitutional Court ruling that established the principles for obtaining Dominican nationality. The discussions have delayed presenting the bill to Congress, as reported in El Dia.
So far, the Haitian government has made the continuation of the bilateral talks conditional on the presentation of the bill to Congress.
Danilo se reúne con funcionarios para definir ley de naturalización