Minister of Interior and Police Jose Ramon Fadul has reiterated his call to the Haitian authorities to provide greater support to the process of issuing legal documentation to their nationals. He says that since the start of the foreigner nationalization plan, 31,000 foreigners have applied, of whom 97% are Haitian. Only 100 of the applicants have the required documentation, which is a birth certificate or passport from their country of origin. Fadul said that 5,900 applicants had submitted some of the documents they need in order to regularize their status but most have none at all.
Since the plan started on 2 June 2014, the main complaint from Haitian immigrants has been that the Haitian Embassy in the Dominican Republic is charging between US$50 to issue birth certificates and US$80 for passports, which they cannot afford.
Fadul added that Haiti should provide more help to their nationals. Nevertheless, he said the Dominican government could not interfere in internal Haitian politics. “Most of the Haitians who want to regularize their status have no documentation and the Dominican state cannot give them this – only Haiti can,” he stated.
He emphasized that the Haitian government should make a stronger effort to help its people, saying that the Dominican government was offering the regularization service free of charge. All the Haitians need is to present their documents from their country of origin. Haitians living in the Dominican Republic have urged the Haitian government to issue Haitian passports in the Dominican Republic, as is done in the Haitian mission in Washington, D.C. The Dominican Republic is the foreign nation where most Haitians live. At present, Haitians who request their passports here need to wait around three months to receive the document.
The application process ends on 15 May 2015. Fadul warned that they would not change the timeframe established for completing the regularization process and once it was over the migration policy would enter a new phase when every foreigner in the country must have the correct documents or face deportation.
www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2014/6/17/326252/Solo-100-logran-completar-requisitos-regularizacion
www.elcaribe.com.do/2014/06/17/gobierno-variara-requisitos-del-plan
www.elcaribe.com.do/2014/06/17/paraison-pide-haiti-oficina-pasaportes