According to official sources, the Dominican Republic has repatriated since the month of February, 6.243 Haitian illegal immigrants, arrested when they tried to cross the border or during control operations by immigration authorities.

General José Francisco Gil, Chief of the 5th Regiment of the Armed Forces in Santiago and Juan Isidro Pérez, the chief of immigration in the North, have told the local press, that the immigrants arrested were proceeding normally, in compliance with human rights.

Jose Alberto Peña, Vice-President and Coordinator of community organizations in the sector south of Santiago, is supporting the repatriation of illegal immigrants, saying that since the earthquake of January 2010 that devastated the Haitian capital and other cities of this country, thousands of Haitians have settled illegally in the neighborhoods of Santiago. Peña said that "the overcrowding led to frequent clashes between Haitian and Dominican communities"

Nowel Altes, coordinator of the Haitian community in the province, recognizes the right of the Dominican authorities to repatriate illegal immigrants, but asks that the law applies equally to all. Recalling that in the country, also live many Chinese, Ecuadorians, Colombians, Cubans and citizens of other countries without documents, but that only Haitians were repatriated and prosecuted. Organizations and representatives of the Haitian community of Santiago asked the Dominican authorities to apply the law to all aliens who are illegally in the territory.

Last Wednesday, the Dominican President Leonel Fernández has received in his office the President-elect of Haiti, Michel Martelly, to discuss among other things, of the thorny issue of immigration and the redevelopment of the Haitian-Dominican border. The President Martelly has considered that these issues must be addressed in the Bilateral Joint Commission, established in 1996 to foster relations between the two countries.

Although no official figures exist, it is estimated that between 700,000 and one million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic in an irregular situation. Several sources say that the number of Haitian immigrants would have increased by nearly 200,000 since the earthquake of January 2010 in Haiti.

HL/ HaitiLibre