6:15 pm, La Romana (Dominican Republic)
GlobalPost Some are Haitian immigrants who arrived more than three decades the country, and now have problems renewing their documents. But the problem is also for their children, second-generation immigrants, to which no other country recognizes them. At the end of the day, born and always lived in the Dominican Republic.
Juan accumulated fame as a physician and local political leader, as well as the director of the city's public hospital. Carmen was devoted to raising her four children and used to travel regularly to the U.S. to visit some relatives. "We have spent a lifetime here. Still live in the same city in which we were born, "he said.
However, in the eyes of the Government of the Dominican Republic Dominican Carmen is not nor ever has been.
Thousands of people who were born on Dominican soil, but are children of illegal immigrants, they are now saying that they are not citizens of Haiti. But as many of these people have lived in the Dominican Republic all his life, no other country recognizes them as citizens.
Carmen has had to request three times the certified copy of birth certificate needed to renew his passport. I say that because his mother was Haitian illegal immigrant, she can not have Dominican citizenship.
"The first time they told us it was a shock. We have never been to Haiti, but nevertheless, would you say she is not Dominican because his mother was Haitian? "Exclaimed her husband. "I'm outraged."
In 2004 the Dominican government passed an immigration bill that denied the right to citizenship by birth to the children of people "in transit" at the time of delivery. The island authorities mean by "in transit" to illegal immigrants, primarily Haitians. After several legal remedies in national and international courts, the government last year adopted a new constitution, which specifies that the children of illegal aliens the country are not entitled to Dominican citizenship.
The government is now applying the law retroactively to the children of Haitians who crossed the border on the island for decades. As a result of this action, thousands of people have been denied their requests for official documents. These documents are necessary to make everything from marriage to go to college or travel.
Human rights groups say that an inordinate amount of people affected are children of Haitians. The International Organization for Migration estimates that about 1.2 million Haitians now living in the Dominican Republic. The government estimates vary substantially.
For some, this is a new twist in the complicated Haitian-Dominican relations. Although they share the island of English, the two countries are very different, culturally and economically.
These differences led the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937 ordered the massacre of Haitians living near the border. The historical tensions have recently revived again.
"These were persons entitled to citizenship by the Constitution in force at the time of birth. You can not retroactively apply a law that takes away someone's citizenship, "says Gonçalves-Margerin Marselha, Robert F. Center Kennedy for Justice and Human Rights.
Much the world is not given the citizenship of a country based only on the right by birth. But in America, born in a country is sufficient to obtain citizenship of that place.
The Dominican Republic is a portrait of what happens when a country changes the rules, say activist groups who oppose the measure. "Some people take decades here. They are doctors, lawyers, baseball players ... people who could be the next leaders of the country. And they are removing the nationality, "says Liliana Gamboa, representative of the Open Society Institute, which funded the appeal to the courts of the citizenship laws Dominican.
"The idea that the system is based on race or is somehow racist is wrong," says Bridget Sabino, director of the division of the Civil Registry in charge of issuing official documents for citizenship. "The truth is that this situation affects both Dominicans and foreigners," he says, but can not provide statistics to substantiate his claim.
The Dominican government has invested over EUR 70 million, provided mostly by the World Bank to modernize its Civil Registration System. Have been scanned and digitized about 20 million legal documents everything from birth certificates to certificates marriage. And during this process has uncovered a massive fraud committed with the old system of registration.
"There were people who used to identify your neighbors to register their children because Dominicans were wanted," said Miguel Angel Garcia, who is overseeing the process of modernizing government.
The government is investigating suspected cases, and meanwhile is refusing new documents to any of the persons who have the alarm bells ringing. If the investigation reveals that the person in question is the daughter of illegal immigrants can not apply for citizenship, said Garcia.
In the case of José Remie means that none of his nine children is a Dominican citizen. It was a Dominican businessman who hired this Haitian decades in his hometown of Port au Prince, to work as a laborer in the sugar cane fields. Remie emigrated to the Dominican Republic with his wife, betili Altimie in 1970.
"I had nine children here, and I've worked all my life for them," he said in English learned in the plantations. His family settled in one of the hundreds of bateyes of the Dominican Republic, small villages to the cane workers, with optimistic names like Hope. Remie and his family live in one called Welcome. Http://noticias.lainformacion.com/mundo/la-republica-dominicana-anula-los-derechos-a-miles-de-inmigrantes-ya-sus-hijos_XBYmpljvzDsSFhWSgE7rr3/
For more details visit to Haiti in http://haiti-crema-y-nata.blogspot.com cream 
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