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PatriciaMazzei
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wants the U.S. to work with the governments of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to resolve — or at least ease — turmoil between the neighboring countries over looming mass deportations.
In 2013, a Dominican court stripped citizenship from thousands of Dominican-born children of Haitian migrants, effectively leaving them stateless and prompting international outcry. The Dominican government now has a “registration” plan for the undocumented to legalize their immigration status, but the situation remains tense.
Rubio wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday asking him to reach out to the Dominicans. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio is an avid letter-writer to Kerry, especially over Cuba and Venezuela policy.
“I respectfully ask that you work with the Dominican government to ensure that the registration process for Dominicans of Haitian descent is fair and inclusive of those born in the country and provides them with the opportunity to live in the Dominican Republic,” the Florida Republican and 2016 presidential candidate wrote.
“I also ask that you work with the Government of Haiti to ensure those who decide to return to that country are treated humanely and receive appropriate assistance. It is important that all individuals who are affected by this ruling are afforded all their rights as citizens of either the Dominican Republic or Haiti and that no one is left stateless.”
Read Rubio’s full letter below.
August 13, 2015
Secretary John Kerry
United States Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20220
Dear Secretary Kerry:
I am writing to express my concern about recent developments in the Dominican Republic, involving Dominican-born individuals of Haitian descent.
As you know, on September 23, 2013, the Dominican Republic’s constitutional court issued a controversial ruling, which rescinded citizenship previously granted to many residents of the Dominican Republican with Haitian heritage. The court issued a ruling that retroactively stripped citizenship from the children of parents who were not “legal residents” at the time of their birth. This ruling was made on the basis that their parents were “in transit” and not residing in the Dominican Republic.
The ruling stated that as a result, the children of the parents “in transit”, and subsequent generations born on Dominican soil, are excluded from the citizenship guarantee provided by the Dominican constitution. This has effectively stripped citizenship from the descendants of Haitian migrants who have settled in the Dominican Republic for over 80 years. The vast majority of these individuals will be left stateless if this ruling is enforced. Tens of thousands of people have reportedly left the Dominican Republic voluntarily and face an uncertain fate in Haiti, where they lack ties and Haitian authorities have not had the resources to assist them.
While the Dominican government has begun the process of registering both Haitians born in the Dominican Republic and adults who have immigrated to the Dominican Republic in a program referred to as “regularization,” there are large numbers of persons of Haitian descent who lack any documentation to prove their nationality.
Therefore, I respectfully ask that you work with the Dominican government to ensure that the registration process for Dominicans of Haitian descent is fair and inclusive of those born in the country and provides them with the opportunity to live in the Dominican Republic. I also ask that you work with the Government of Haiti to ensure those who decide to return to that country are treated humanely and receive appropriate assistance. It is important that all individuals who are affected by this ruling are afforded all their rights as citizens of either the Dominican Republic or Haiti and that no one is left stateless.
It is also important that the United States continue to support the people of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and I look forward to your updates on your outreach to both governments.
Sincerely,
Marco Rubio
United States Senator
Mister Rubio, it would like to inform you that the decision of the Constitutional Court about to make retroactive that sentence, is not shared by the majority of the ordinary people in D.R., BUT we do agree with the regularization of the migration to our country, as EVERY country does around the world, including YOUR own country. We opened the doors to 1 MILLION Haitian nationals after the earthquake to be there one year, but FIVE years have passed and nobody have left back, while the USA, only 11 months after the earthquake, took out all the Haitians they accepted, even knowing that there was an apidemic of cholera in Haiti at that moment. So, USA has not any moral before us.
The Dominican Republic never accepted 1,000,000 people after the earthquake.
Good rumor.
Not true.
Actually, very few, under the circumstance.
The United States accepted more.
People miss he fact that the Dominican Republic passed a law to the effect that anyone involved, from 1929 till the present, can be termed “transient” by Dominican authorities and deported.
I this concept was applied, in the United States, Senator Cruz, a presidential candidate, could be deported. He was born in Canada December 22, 1970.
Dominicans can deport the great-great grandchildren of people who were born and raised in the DR.
Something wrong with this!!!
Dear Senator Rubio, not so fast. Your request for the United States to intervene in Haiti and the Dominican Republic would send the wrong message.
The Obama Administration, the United States Department of State, the Pentagon and your Senate Foreign Relations Committee have all been busy to collaborate with the Dominican military on immigration issues. Since the U.S has already taken side with the Dominican authorities promoting ethnic cleansing and genocide regarding Haitian nationals, U.S negotiators can not be expected to be neutral and be an objective arbitrator in the conflict. The firsrt step Mr. Rubio should recommand is to place a freeze on all those military contracts that are designed to empower the Dominican to increase its lethal capability to pursue, capture, and deport Haitian nationals without due process.
Mr. Rubio has the clout to initiate a brand new refugee policy that would work with the Obama Administration to assist Haiti in the processing of the Dominicans born of Haitian nationals as bona
fide refugees and offer them a third country to settle in peace without persecution. Leaving the United Nations out of the discussions on the Dominican and Haiti conflict is a major mistake. The UN .should have the know how and the necessary expertise to help the displacement of people instead of only condemning the Dominican action to strip their own citizen from the Dominican nationality and citizen ship.
As the House Speaker of the Florida State Legislature, when the Haitian Community was seeking safe haven to escape from the horible days of persecution under the Bush II that engineered the indefinite detention policy targeting only Haitian nationals seeking political asylum in the United States, we failed to discover the compassionate conservative that is so dear in your heart today.
As President Bush II crafted the Wet Foot / Dried Foot policy to distinguish the most wanted and most desirable refugees versus the most neglected ones, no one heard the voice of reason to call the Administration to task to correct that dubious policy.
Jean-Robert Lafortune, BPA, M.Sc.
Haitian American Grassroots Coalition (HAGC) President
Biscayne Gardens. Florida 33168
Jean-Robert Lafortune is a Civil Rights and Human Rights Advocate pursuing fair and equal treatment for Haitian Nationals in the United States and the region.