Helping Haitians
Ambassador acts to help Haitians in the DR
The Haitian ambassador in the Dominican Republic, Fritz Cineas has asked the authorities to respect and guarantee the human rights of Haitians living in this country regardless of their immigration status.
He issued the communication in the wake of a series of allegations of abuses while praising the work of several international organizations, local bishops and others from the USA, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, who have publicly stated that attention must be paid to the plight of Haitians living in the country and that the status of children born to Haitian parents on Dominican soil needs to be regularized.
Cineas promised to work more closely with local authorities to prevent situations of abuse involving documentation procedures and the arbitrary deportations of Haitian citizens.
He issued his statement after the Coalition of Organizations of Haitian Immigrants in the Dominican Republic, consisting of 22 groups, approached him with complaints about the arbitrary behavior of local migration authorities towards Haitians and asked for more action from their own ambassador to protect them.
The alleged acts include violation of the human rights of Haitian immigrants in terms of deportations, the retroactive collection of taxes by the Immigration Department, and the alleged refusal by Immigration Director Jose Ricardo Taveras to sign provisional or permanent residency papers.
Also, at the 2012 Regional Bishops' Consultation on Migration, held May 28-30 in Santo Domingo, Catholic bishops from Latin America and the USA condemned what they described as the constant violations of the rights of Haitians who live in the Dominican Republic including deportations, and inhumane working conditions, especially for workers in the sugar cane fields.
www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/bishops-denounce-horrors-suffered-by-immigrants-in-the-west/
Bookmarks