Sonia Pierre, spokesperson for the Movement of Dominican-Haitian Women, criticized Cardinal Nicolás López Rodríguez for urging the Dominican government to install migration controls. She said this could result in aggressions against Haitian immigrants. In an interview for the Listín Diario, she said that thousands of descendants of Haitians are in legal limbo since the government does not recognize them as Dominicans, and they have lost their ties with Haiti. Most Haitians that have moved to the DR have no legal documentation from Haiti either. The newspaper also interviewed residents in the "Little Haiti" section of Santo Domingo, such as Ernesto Pierret, who said that the Haitian issue was making headlines because these are election times. Late Partido Revolucionario Dominicano José Francisco Peña Gómez’s Haitian heritage was used against him in past elections, but today this situation is no longer so. Today all political parties are united on the need to control Haitian migration.
