
While the situation is more common with recent Haitian migrant arrivals, the lack of legal documentation also affects hundreds of thousands of persons who have lived in the Dominican Republic all their life and generations of their families, too.
Hoy newspaper carries a report of the community of El Berrinche where many long time residents do not have civil identity. The tragedy worsens when a woman does not have ID, and then has children. Like herself, her children will be able to finish grade school, and maybe even continue into high school but they will not be able to graduate from school and without legal status, they will have a hard time getting a good-paying job.
Over the years, hundreds of thousands have found ways to irregularly get an ID. People can recall the extreme case of a Belgian Roman Catholic priest Pedro Ruquoy who served as father to declare persons without ID on the border with Haiti, without complying with adoption procedures.
The Central Electoral Board (JCE) Civil Registry has data that shows that in the system there are around 3 million irregularly-issued IDs, as Janet Camilo, representative of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), told the press after a meeting with political parties regarding the new Dominican identity card scheduled to be issued this 2025.
The Civil Registry Department is at work purging the records in time for issuing the new cards. At present, the Central Electoral Board is requesting that both parents appear for the issuing of a renewed birth certificate or a death certificate be presented when there is reason for doubting a record.
When the JCE board presented the plans for the new ID card to the Fuerza del Pueblo (former President Leonel Fernandez’s political party), that party touched upon the challenge of people without identity living in the Dominican Republic. A press release from the political party stated:
“Furthermore, the party emphasized the need for an audit of the Civil Registry, given the growing concern over the increasing number of births to Haitian women in the country and the potential implications for birth registration. This will allow for cross-referencing of information between both audits, ensuring that the records are accurate and preventing non-Dominicans from obtaining identity documents improperly. The review of the Civil Registry will also allow the country to be informed of whether irregularities, such as those involving mafias, have been corrected.”
In parallel, the country will need to address the reality of hundreds of thousands of persons living for decades in the Dominican Republic without identity, creating new legal initiatives to regularize per merit or other reasons the status of these persons so they can fully integrate in Dominican life.
Read more in Spanish:
Hoy
El Dia
Diario Libre
DR1 News
30 January 2025