Haitian descendants in Dominican Republic face human tragedy

 

 

Dominicans of Haitian descent protest the decision to strip them of citizenship.

AP

In the midst of our domestic distraction with Obamacare and the destructive and just-ended federal government shutdown, we are in the midst of a global human-rights tragedy endangering hundreds of thousands of individuals but that has gone virtually unnoticed.

The highest court of the Dominican Republic recently decided to ignore hundreds of years of Western constructions of citizenship law, which provides that citizenship is granted to offspring of citizens or to those born in a country. Specifically, the court ruled to deny the Dominican nationality to children of undocumented immigrants, despite the fact that these children were born in the Dominican Republic.

The victims of this unwise decision meet both hallmarks of citizenship — they were born in the Dominican Republic and were born of Dominican parents (albeit of Haitian descent). To add insult to this legally absurd injury, the Dominican court decided to strip the citizenship of generations of Dominicans of Haitian descent dating back to 1929.

This unprecedented ruling could leave stateless and completely vulnerable anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 former Dominican citizens.

This villainous court decision will bring about a huge humanitarian tragedy. The people who will become stateless once the decision is implemented, for the most part, don’t know, nor have they been to, any country other than their native Dominican Republic. They speak only Spanish and have few, if any, family ties in neighboring Haiti.

These largely defenseless victims are condemned to one of four possible fates:

• First, the majority will be deported en masse to Haiti, where they will live as strangers, facing persecution from authorities of a land they are unfamiliar with and further complicating an already unbearable social and economic crisis.

• Second, a tiny portion of them will live in hiding in the Dominican Republic, bouncing from place to place, unable to lead a stable life.

• Third, some of them will be forced to live under the “benevolent” protection of sugar cane plantation owners who will then exploit their labor for a pittance. They will have to accede to sub-human living conditions to avoid being reported to the immigration authorities.

• Finally, there is the real possibility of many of them rightfully seeking political asylum in neighboring countries like the United States, and they will start building makeshift boats, attempting the deadly trek to reach the more clement shores of the Bahamas, Cuba and the United States.

Some may ask why, given our own domestic problems, we should care about the problems in another country; it may be tragic, but it is not our obligation to police the world. Such views miss some basic points.

In this global world, human-rights violations at our doorstep that could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands are in fact our problem and obligation to address. And if this humane and moral stance is not enough, rest assured that this issue will eventually reach our doorsteps, when tens of thousands of victims seek political asylum in our country as well as others throughout the hemisphere. The entire region will have to address the consequences of the Dominican court’s decision.

Finally, the decision by the Dominican court is a microcosm of the immigration debate occurring in our own land. If, in fact, the American public would have supported a self-deportation model that now the Dominicans have imposed, we, too, would be facing massive threats to millions of our residents. Thankfully, we have found such potential injustices unacceptable. We can’t afford to sit quietly by while just off our shores others are engaging in rank persecution.

The international community, the United States and the Haitian government should exercise their combined political and economic power to ensure that this injustice is rolled back.

Ediberto Roman teaches law at Florida International University and is the author of numerous books and articles. Frandley Julien studies law at FIU.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/22/3705305/haitian-descendants-in-dominican.html#storylink=cpy

Comments

[Matt]

"The highest court of the Dominican Republic recently decided to ignore hundreds of years of Western constructions of citizenship law, which provides that citizenship is granted to offspring of citizens or to those born in a country. Specifically, the court ruled to deny the Dominican nationality to children of undocumented immigrants, despite the fact that these children were born in the Dominican Republic."

I've only read journalistic accounts of this story, and as is typical, they are not very clear on the details. I also agree that it's an obviously bad decision based on bad reasons. It is worth pointing out, though, that many, many (perhaps most) countries don't grant citizenship merely for being born in the territory. The US's rule is unusually strong even for countries that have jus soli rules at all, and quite a few don't have any such rule. Several other countries have been moving to more restrictive forms of jus soli, forms that would at least arguably have a similar result to that found here. So, the law is bad, is pretty clearly motivated by bad motives, but isn't unprecedented or even shockingly rare. Even the more radical move of stripping citizenship rights from those formerly held to have them, while vile and outrageous, isn't unprecedented among "western" countries- there is some real similarity to what the UK did to "over seas" citizens in the 60's and 70's as it moved to restrict citizenship for residents of its former colonies (just when they were starting to move to the UK in noticeable numbers.)

[what to do]

All states have a real interest in regulating immigration and naturalization. Decisions on what is appropriate are always specific to a given state's situation. What the DR is doing is extreme, but certainly within the realm of what is done by many states. It is not wrong to punish those who illegally immigrate. All states have laws doing so in some form or fashion. Punishing the children of illegal immigrants and stripping citizenship sounds terrible to me, but it may not to the citizens of the DR.

I'm not clear on what you advocate the US do. Sanctions, travel bans, cutting off aid? Do you advocate the use of economic and political force against the DR to force it to give citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants? All sound like extreme attempts to impose what we think is right on another state when all the while that state's immigration laws aren't that different from apparently acceptable laws of others. I submit that trying to do such things would be a political disaster for the US. Given our track record we would get no backing from other countries. We would be looked at yet again as a bully trying to impose.

However, if you want to continue a publicity campaign and organize a voluntary campaign urging US citizens not to travel to or do business in the Dominican Republic until it changes its laws, then I am on board.

[Wayfair Promo Code]

You can use normal sort oof salt I think that rok salt's just got a fantastic sort of nutty flavour and I just love it, so, let's get started! So easy to do, and you don't have a wayfair 10 coupon code food processor and I've just mixed thedm until they were like breadcrumbs. And give that a good mix around and this will help to thicken up our mixture.

[www.youtube.com]

Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the images aren't loading properly. I'm not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I've tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.

[company of heroes 2 cd key cd key]

Asking questions are genuinely good thing if you are noot understanding anything totally, except this pozt offers nice understanding even.

[Wayfair]

I usually do not drop a comment, however after browsing through a greaat deal of responses here The Faculty Lounge: Haitia descendants in Dominican Republic face human tragedy. I actually do have a couple of questions for you if yoou don't mind. Is it simply me or do a few of these responses appear as if they are coming from brain dead individuals? :-P And, if you are writing at other online social sites, I'd like to keep up with everything fresh you have to post. Couild you make a list of all of all your social pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?