Government authorities have decided to appoint a commission to investigate the migration status of around 1,200 Haitians, for whom a Canadian charitable organization, The Samaritan Foundation, reportedly built around 250 homes in Montellano, Puerto Plata province.
The Deputy Minister of Naturalization and Migration has said that members of the Ministry of Interior and Police will visit the project to investigate the case over the next few days.
Diario Libre broke the story in its Tuesday, 6 January 2015 issue.
The decision to set up the commission was announced yesterday, Tuesday, 6 January 2015 by the Minister of Interior and Police Jose Ramon Fadul who said the project was “difficult to believe.” He commented that the foreign NGO was violating migration laws by providing permanent housing to undocumented foreigners, and warned that from 30 June of this year, foreigners who have not at least begun the process of legalizing their status under the National Regularization Plan would be deported, “whether they have a house or not”.
A PRSC councilor in Sosua, Arismendy Medina, is mentioned as having helped with the construction of the houses, but party president Federico Antun Batlle criticized the fact that housing was being built for people who did not comply with legal requirements.
“If it is to help the poor and build houses for the poor, we respect that, if it is to settle illegals we fully reject that because this country has to be respected and when they are so many Dominicans who need homes, we cannot give them to foreigners who are in the country illegally”, said Antun.
The Canadian embassy in the country had no comment either for or against the community that they had set up in Montellano.
Press reports indicate that in October 2014, the president of the Democratic Christian Union (UDC) in Barahona, had warned of the Canadian ambassador’s plans to set up a shelter for undocumented Haitians in the province and other places around the country, as reported in Diario Libre.
Senator Dionis Sanchez said that there were no political refugees in the country and that this housing project is a violation of the Constitution.
He advised The Samaritan Foundation to implement the project in Haiti where many people need it. PRM Deputy Cristian Encarnacion agreed, saying that Haiti was where this type of project was really needed. He recalled that there were still thousands of victims in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/01/07/i956441_las-autoridades-deciden-investigar-caso-del-barrio-haitianos-ilegales.html
Legisladores se oponen a supuesto asentamiento de ilegales haitianos en el país
http://www.diariolibre.com/destacada/2015/01/06/i949691_canadienses-construyen-barrio-para-haitianos-indocumentados.html
https://www.facebook.com/TheSamaritanFoundation