Roberto Rosario Marquez, president of the Central Electoral Board (JCE), the government body in charge of civil registration in the Dominican Republic, said yesterday that Caricom governments representing the English-speaking Caribbean, with some exceptions, are exercising international pressure on the DR to open its doors to Haitian immigration as a way to relieve Haitian immigration pressure to these island nations. Rosario implied that Caribbean governments back Dominican migratory policies only when it is convenient to do so, for political or market reasons.
Caricom countries have overtly protested the repatriation of undocumented persons in the Dominican Republic.
The Dominican Republic shares a 300 km land border with Haiti, a country where most of its citizens are not legally documented, which causes major problems when these emigrate looking for work and to improve their living standards.
The remarks were made during an interview with the Corripio media group. Rosario said referring to Caricom countries: “They depend on tourism and compete with us and they also suffer from Haitian migration to their territories and this is why our repatriations could affect them.”
Rosario commented that the US does not have moral stand to say that the Dominican Republic is racist when it has not been capable of implementing a humanitarian migratory reform. He said he expects the US Ambassador James Brewster will report to the US government the statistics on the Dominican migratory reform process.
“The United States uses the Dominican Republic to exorcise its own racism and xenophobia demons that are historic and contemporary,” he said.
He said it is a weakness of the Dominican government to act defensively instead of being proactive with an international campaigns showing how the government has addressed migratory issues in an effective and humanitarian way.
“The government has to show the statistics and appoint a team of specialists, knowledgeable in the topic and diplomacy, to present at forums the social, humanitarian and solidarity that are very much part of the migratory reform,” he observed.
Alejandra Liriano, Vice Minister of Foreign Relations said at a press conference at the Presidential Palace that on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Andres Navarro would participate in a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States where he will explain Dominican migratory policy to the 15 member countries of Caricom that will be represented there.
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/06/26/i1212441_martes-gobierno-responder-caricom.html