Amnesty International released this Urgent Action on 29 January concerning a mass deportation in the Dominican Republic.
“On 27 January, 51 people, including 30 Dominican-born children, some of their mothers and 14 other adults were deported without due process to Haiti from the Dominican Republic. More mass deportations of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants are feared.
“Following a ruling issued by the Dominican Constitutional Court in 2013 that rendered tens of thousands of people of foreign descent stateless, the mothers intended to enroll their children in a naturalization scheme established by the Dominican government in May 2014 to regularize the situation of Dominican children of irregular migrants. The 14 other Haitian migrants sought to enroll in the National Regularization Plan for Foreigners with Irregular Migration Status, established in 2013 for undocumented migrants living in the Dominican Republic.
Around 20 kilometers before reaching San Juan de la Maguana, where the nearest offices that process enrolment for both naturalization and regularization processes are located, the mini-buses were stopped at a military checkpoint. The military officers denied the group access to the city for being “undocumented migrants”. Following negotiations with the religious officials, they were asked to obtain a pass at the office of the Migration Directorate in Elias Piña near the Haitian-Dominican border. Once they arrived at the Migration Directorate office, they were detained and accused of being illegal wanderers.
The authorities ordered their immediate deportation to Haiti without giving them the opportunity to have their cases individually examined, and therefore be able to challenge the legality of their detention or appeal the decision.”
MCC Haiti urges you to respond to Amnesty’s call to write messages to Dominican officials in Spanish or your own language to José Ramón Fadul, Minister of Interior and Police (info@mip.gob.do); Lic. Jose Ricardo Taveras, Director of Migration (info@migracion.gov.do); Andrés Navarro García, Minister of Foreign Affairs (relexteriores@mirex.gob.do) A sample of what to include in your message is below. All letters must be sent by March 11.
To learn more about the recent history of legal discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent read The Dominican Republic’s discrimination against Haitians (Washington Post.) and this previous LACA blog post Standing with Haitian-Dominicans against statelessness.
Sample letter:
Dear Ministers and Director,
I write today in response to the 27 January 2015 expulsion of 51 people, including 30 Dominican-born individuals, from the Dominican Republic without due process.
I write, urging you to:
-allow these children and their families to enroll in the appropriate naturalization and regularization schemes;
-not to use naturalization and regularization procedures to detect alleged undocumented migrants and to stop all deportations of similar measures against applicants in the naturalization and regularization schemes;
-fulfil the Dominican Republic’s obligations under international law, which prohibit arbitrary and collective expulsions, and to ensure that all those facing removal from the Dominican Republic have their cases individually examined in a fair and transparent procedure, where they can challenge the authorities’ decisions and have their case reviewed.
Please consider these requests and redress this situation and the circumstances that precipitated it as soon as possible.
In sincere hope of policies that affirm the dignity of every human being,
(Your name and country)