I posted this way back in 2013, and it looks like the very worst is coming to pass for people who have lived in the Dominican Republic their whole lives and are about to be rendered stateless. What will become of these people? Does anyone care? I do. I will never give my travel dollars to the Dominican Republic as long as this outrage continues.
It’s a small island. You’d think Haitians and Dominicans would have learned to get along by now. Not so much.
In May, the Dominican Republic ruled that if you were born of Haitian parents any time after 1929 (which means, basically, all of them) you would be stripped of your Dominican citizenship and deported. Never mind that these people have lived there all their lives, and have never even been to Haiti.
But to make matters even worse, the government is refusing to provide them with any proof of their existence. Haitian-Dominicans cannot get their birth certificates or any form of identification. That means even if they do get deported, no one will take them. And if they stay, they can’t go to university or get any kind of white collar job, and have to live in constant fear of being stopped on the street by police and asked for…
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