The Haitian-Dominican Migration Crisis

Absolute DR crime
Published: November 28, 2013
For most of Caricom's history, the issues faced seemed largely on how to move the regional body's agenda forward. Most of the meetings held among heads of government seemed to repeat old pledges and then promise to seek ways to develop the Community into a more meaningful trading bloc and political and diplomatic entity. We acknowledge that part of the problem of a lack of advancement lay with changes in governments when elections were held. We in the Caribbean seem to have difficulty in developing continuity from government to government on domestic as well as regional issues.
Full Article : newsday.co.tt

Gonsalves: UN must act against DR
By Miranda La Rose
Published: November 28, 2013
A MECHANISM must be put in place at the level of the United Nations (UN) to repatriate Dominican Republic (DR) citizens of Haitian heritage who have been wrongly expelled from the DR and dumped in neighbouring Haiti because of a Constitutional Court ruling.
Full Article : newsday.co.tt

Caricom blanks DR
By Julien Neaves
Published: November 27, 2013
In what Caricom chairman and TT's Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar described as the "first salvo" against the Dominican Republic (DR) following that country's Constitutional Court ruling denying citizenship to persons of Haitian heritage, Caricom has halted consideration of the DR's request for membership to the regional group.
Full Article : newsday.co.tt

Caricom to review DR ties
By Richard Lord
Published: November 27, 2013
Caricom will defer its consideration of an application for membership to the regional movement by the Dominican Republic (DR) and review its relationship with that country in Cariforum, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Organisation of American States (OAS).
Full Article : guardian.co.tt

Caricom pressure for DR on citizen crisis
By Carla Bridglal
Published: November 26, 2013
Until the Dominican Republic changes its position of stripping people of Haitian descent born to undocumented immigrants of their citizenship, then Caricom will not consider its application to join the Community.
"It cannot be business as usual. In light of the grave humanitarian implications of the court ruling the Community cannot allow its relationship with the Dominican Republic to continue as normal. The Community at this time will suspend consideration of the request of the Dominican Republic for membership to Caricom," current Caricom chair Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said yesterday at a media conference after a special meeting of the Caricom Bureau at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's, Port of Spain.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

DR 'extreme' case on human rights
By Michelle Loubon
Published: November 20, 2013
Prof Rose-Marie Antoine, St Augustine campus dean of the Faculty of Law and commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and rapporteur for Persons of African Descent and Against Discrimination, says all seven commissioners will be going into the Dominican Republic (DR) from December 2 to 6 to "interrogate the hu­man rights situation". They will be meeting with President Danilo Medina Sanchez.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

Sin Estado: Stateless in Santo Domingo
By Jabari Fraser
Published: November 16, 2013
Try as some of them may, to stay away from public glare or government authorities, for many Haitian-Dominicans, whose status on the Spanish-Speaking side of Hispaniola is not regular. Judgment 168/13 is bringing all of the "compatriotas" out.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

Caricom Bureau needs no long meeting on the DR issue
By Jamaica Observer Editorial
Published: November 15, 2013
The Caricom chair, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has finally emerged from her slumber on this most egregious issue and has called a meeting of the Caricom Bureau for Tuesday to consider, we are told, "effective initiatives" against the Constitutional Court ruling that will strip citizenship from thousands of people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic.
Full Article : jamaicaobserver.com

Tell DR where to get off
By Jamaica Gleaner Editorial
Published: November 15, 2013
The visit to Jamaica by Haiti's president Michel Martelly provides an opportunity for a deepening of economic and political relations between the two countries.
It should also be a platform from which Jamaica rejects any idea of Haitians being on the periphery of the Caribbean family. That message must be sent firmly to the Dominican Republic.
Full Article : jamaica-gleaner.com

Haiti - Denationalization : Sanctions requested against the Dominican Republic
Published: November 13, 2013
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, called for the adoption of a series of economic sanctions against the Dominican Republic to compel the authorities of that country to reverse the judgment 168-13 of the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) to withdraw citizenship to descendants of foreigners born in the Dominican Republic after 1929, on the basis that their parents were considered "in transit", that is to say do not have an official document of residence or legal identification, a decision that particularly affects people of Haitian descent.
Full Article : haitilibre.com

Stop 'Humanitarian Crisis' In Dominican Republic, Latino Leaders Plead
By Roque Planas
Published: November 12, 2013
Latino leaders in the United States hope to stop the Dominican Republic from leaving hundreds of thousands of Haitian–descended Dominicans stateless.
Full Article : huffingtonpost.com

Ambassador: Not all are granted Dominican citizenship
Published: November 08, 2013
"Unlike the United States, the Dominican Republic does not grant citizenship to all those born within its jurisdiction. In fact, the United States is one of the few nations that maintains this practice. In most countries, it is the norm that citizenship be obtained by origin or conferred under certain conditions. Since 1929, the Constitution of the Dominican Republic has established that the children of people in transit, a temporary legal status, are not eligible for Dominican citizenship..."
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

The dirty business of cleansing
By Sheila Rampersad
Published: November 07, 2013
Sitting with Dr Jose Serulle Ramia, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to T&T yesterday, I heard words that had already been uttered by his partner ambassador to Washington DC, Anibal de Castro, in the New York Times of October 31–that the DR Government must follow the law i.e. Ruling 0168–13 of the country's Constitutional Tribunal; that DR is not racist towards Haitians; that it has a legitimate interest in regulating immigration; and that the ruling was a mandate to provide people affected with temporary residence permits until a regularisation plan is in place.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

Dominican Republic denies immigration ruling is 'racist'
By Vanessa Buschschluter
Published: October 31, 2013
The ambassador said that undocumented workers would be issued with temporary residency cards and even those lacking documentation would continue to be given access to the country's health and educational services. He said migrant workers would continue to be welcomed in the Dominican Republic, which "treasures their commitment to hard work".
Full Article : bbc.co.uk

Commentary: The Haitian-Dominican migration crisis
By Jean H Charles
Published: October 26, 2013
On September 23, 2013, the Supreme Court of the Dominican Republic handed down the decision TC0168/13 in the matter of Juliana Deguis Pierre, 28, a Dominican citizen with four children born in the Dominican Republic, ruling against her and all persons similarly situated. The ruling stated that those persons born after 1929 in the Dominican Republic of parents that did not have proper documents while entering and continuing to live in the Dominican Republic without legalization are henceforth stripped of their Dominican citizenship. The ruling will be enforced by all the branches of the Dominican government.
Full Article : caribbeannewsnow.com

Protests hit Dominican Republic's expulsion of Haitians
By Rocio Silverio
Published: October 24, 2013
Imagine waking up to the news that the only country you have ever known has officially rejected you by a 9 to 2 vote. That is what will potentially happen to hundreds of thousands in the Dominican Republic in the coming year.
Full Article : workers.org

Dominicans of Haitian Descent Cast Into Legal Limbo by Court
By Randal C. Archibold
Published: October 24, 2013
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic – For generations, people of Haitian descent have been an inextricable part of life here, often looked at with suspicion and dismay, but largely relied on all the same to clean rooms, build things cheaply and provide the backbreaking labor needed on the country's vast sugar plantations.
Full Article : nytimes.com

Gonzalez: Citizenship of Haitians in Dominican Republic for decades threatened by court ruling
By Juan Gonzalez
Published: October 22, 2013
The Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court ordered a government review of all birth certificates issued since 1929 for the purpose of determining how many Dominican–born children of foreigners were born 'in transit' and wrongly granted citizenship. Human rights advocates called it pure 'racism and xenophobia.'
For the first time, the court referred to a "common cultural vision, common language, and shared racial traits" as defining the Dominican nation, Torres Saillant said. To him, it sounds "more like Germany in the 1930s."
Full Article : nydailynews.com

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If you are black, get out: The crisis of statelessness in the Dominican Republic
By Denise Oliver
Published: October 20, 2013
The decision by the high court in the Dominican Republic to declare anywhere from 250,000 to 400,000 Dominicans who may have Haitian ancestry "not citizens" with a start date of birth of 1929 is simply appalling.
Full Article : dailykos.com

Defining Citizenship in the Dominican Republic
By Jon Anderson
Published: October 10, 2013
Years ago, while covering the plight of Dominican cane cutters, most of whom come from Haiti, I met one who eloquently lamented the segregation, not all that different from Apartheid, which kept them in a perpetual state of limb.
Full Article : worldpolicy.org

If you're black, go back
By Reginald Dumas
Published: October 10, 2013
In March 2007 Amnesty International (AI) published a report which stated that some 20-30,000 Haitians were expelled every year from the Dominican Republic (DR) and that many of these expulsions breached international human rights law. Haitians and Dominico-Haitians were often rounded up and deported with no chance of appeal, purely on the basis of their skin colour. Many had valid work permits and visas, and some were in fact Dominicans with no family ties to Haiti.
Full Article : trinidadexpress.com

The Dominican Republic and Haiti: one island riven by an unresolved past
By Carrie Gibson
Published: October 07, 2013
This is the latest legal attack on the rights of Haitians and their descendants; measures in the past few years have included reclassifying migrant workers as "in transit" rather than legal residents. This meant any child born in the Dominican Republic – which had been one basis for citizenship – also needed one Dominican parent, or one who was a legal resident.
Full Article : theguardian.com

The Dominican Republic and Haiti: one island riven by an unresolved past
By CMSNY
Published: October 03, 2013
On September 26, 2013, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic issued a ruling to revoke the citizenship of the children of unauthorized migrants born in the Dominican Republic since 1929. The ruling held that Haitians who migrated to work on Dominican sugar plantations and in other labor sectors were "in transit" and, therefore, their children were not entitled to citizenship.
Prior to 2010, the Dominican Constitution excluded from citizenship the children born to diplomats or parents "in transit" for a period of ten days or less. Though the law conferred citizenship on the children of residents whose time in the country exceeded the ten-day period, civil registry officers engaged in widespread ad hoc denial of official birth certificates to thousands of Dominican-born children of Haitian parents whom they deemed to be "in transit."
Full Article : cmsny.org

Thought you were a citizen? Dominican Republic changes the rules.
By Ezra Fieser
Published: October 01, 2013
For decades, Haitians have traveled to the Dominican Republic to work in sugar fields and banana plantations and, more recently, in the booming construction sector. Hundreds of thousands of families have settled. The government used to grant citizenship to all children born in the country, with the exception of people "in transit," a group that included little more than foreign diplomats posted here.
But in 2004, a new migration law expanded that category to include non–residents, such as undocumented Haitians. Migration authorities then began to refuse to supply certified copies of birth certificates to the children of Haitians. In 2010, the government installed a new constitution that formalized the distinction.
Full Article : csmonitor.com

Dominican Republic: Time to Move Forward to Resolve Statelessness
Published: April 28, 2008
On May 16, President Leonel Fernandez won a further term in office using the electoral slogan "Pa'lante" ("moving forward") with a campaign message of modernization and development for the country. But the Dominican Republic is not utilizing all its human resources to move forward. An illegal retroactive application of nationality laws is leaving increasing numbers of Dominicans of Haitian descent functionally stateless.
Full Article : refugeesinternational.org