The director of the National Migration Institute (INM), Florinda Rojas announced the availability of the Dominican Republic Migratory Profile 2017. The International Organization for Migration (OIM) funded the study.
During the presentation of the study, Jorge Baca, mission chief for OIM in the Dominican Republic, said that the profile of migration in the country has changed. He explained that while in the 20th Century migrants were from rural communities, today people from the cities are migrating.
The study researchers say foreign migrants in the Dominican Republic continue at 5.4% of the total population, as it was a century ago, or around half a million people. On the other hand, Dominican expats have increased to around two million people.
Between 2000 and 2015, according to the National Migration Profile, the number of emigrating persons increased from 880,000 to 1.3 million. By 2016, nearly 1.1 million Dominican lived in the United States, and today, these persons and their descendants are the fifth-largest Hispanic group in the US, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The US is the predominant destination with 90% of overseas Dominicans living there. From just 12,000 Dominicans in 1960, the number climbed to 169,000 in 1980 and doubled in 1990 and again in 2010.
The Yearly Immigration Statistics from the US Department of Homeland Security show that over 50,000 legal residents were approved in 2015, 60,000 in 2016 and 58,000 in 2017. The vast majority of Dominicans with residency status in the US have migrated taking advantage of the process of family reunification.
In Europe, Spain is the preferred country, with an estimated 158,000 Dominican expats, followed by Italy with 43,000 Dominican residents. An estimated 50,000 Dominicans live in Puerto Rico. Dominicans living in Canada are doubling every decade and there are now around 16,000.
22 July 2019