The Medina administration has announced that the National Foreigner Legalization Plan will start in Santo Domingo, San Cristobal, La Altagracia (Higuey), Santiago and La Romana, the provinces with the largest immigrant populations, on Monday, 1 June 2014. The program to legalize all residents in the country is estimated to cost more than RD$1 billion. Minister of Interior and Police Jose Ramon Fadul, who is also the president of the National Immigration Council, said that offices for the program have been set up in 12 provincial governor’s offices and at nine Central Electoral Board (JCE) centers. The centers will operate from 8am to 6pm.
The government expects to spend RD$1,400-RD$1,500 to legalize undocumented residents. There is no cost for the applicant to legalize their status. An estimated 500,000-700,000 people without legal status are living in the country.
Fadul said that documenting the Haitian immigrants would be most difficult, because most of them entered the Dominican Republic without any legal documentation.
The implementation of the plan was ordered by Constitutional Court Ruling 168-13 of September 2013 and is based on Immigration Law 285-04 and the ruling published 631-11.
Anyone who does not adhere to the legalization plan will face deportation in December 2015.