President Luis Abinader met with acting Prime Minister of Haiti Ariel Henry in Los Angeles on the sideline of the 9th Summit of the Americas. The Presidency said the meeting was requested by Henry.
As reported in Ici Haiti, the agenda was to discuss security, migration, the regularization of Haitian workers, the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and the strengthening of port and customs management.
As reported in Ici Haiti, President Abinader said that the Dominican Republic was ready to provide technical assistance to the Haitian government in the areas of training, technology and intelligence.
As reported in Ici Haiti, the acting prime minister agreed to regularize the situation of Haitian immigrants and workers in the Dominican Republic, by providing them with identification documents. As reported in Ici Haiti, President Luis Abinader had said that his government is open to the regularization of documented Haitian workers.
Ici Haiti reports that Henry and Abinader agreed on the revitalizing the Haitian-Dominican Joint Committee. In the past, the Dominican side has desisted in the participating when the agreements reached have been ignored by the Haitian side.
As reported, the two agreed on the renewal and strengthening of the Binuh mandate with regards to justice and security.
After an Efe news wire mentioned the Dominican government would be regularizing Haitians living in the country, President Luis Abinader was prompt to say that the government of Haiti needs to provide its people with documents that can be used for these to regularize their status in the Dominican Republic.
Last year, the Migration Agency in the Dominican Republic began a program to issue “Border Inhabitant” identification documents to Haitians that live or work on the border and who otherwise did not have any identification. The program, nevertheless, was aborted after major questioning of the legality of the program.
Most of the people in Haiti do not have identity papers. This has never been a priority for the Haitian governments. Given the unchanging situation and implications for local security, throughout the years, the Dominican government has found temporary solutions to regularize hundreds of thousands of Haitians that find themselves impeded from getting official paperwork from their government when migrating to the Dominican Republic.
Following the meeting, there were confusing reports the Haitian government had stated the Dominican government agreed to regularize undocumented Haitians. As a result, the Presidency issued the statement:
“The Dominican government clarifies that in the bilateral conversation held on 9 June 2022, within the framework of the Summit of the Americas, between the President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, and the Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, there was no commitment to regularize the situation of Haitian immigrants and workers in the country or to support the candidacy of the former Haitian Minister of Public Health, Florence Guillaume Duperval, for the position of director general of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
“President Luis Abinader’s position on these two issues is as follows:
Regarding immigrants and workers: the government of Haiti should make every effort to provide official Haitian documents to all immigrants and workers who are in the Dominican Republic.
“Regarding the candidacy for PAHO: The Dominican president indicated that Abinader could not define any support, in view of the fact that the government of Panama also has a candidacy for the same position and is an ally with whom we should talk to first about this.
“The Dominican government has very clear positions with respect to the bilateral agenda with the Haitian government.
“The only valid information on agreements or discussions within the framework of the Summit of the Americas are those issued by government sources in the Dominican Republic.”
Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry would issue a statement lamenting the misunderstandings, as reported in Listin Diario.
An editorial in Diario Libre today, stresses the wisdom in taking care in signing any migratory agreement with Haiti that would stimulate more migration than the high numbers that already exist.
Read more:
Ici Haiti
HaitiLibre
Presidency
Listin Diario
Reuters
Listin Diario
Diario Libre
13 June 2022