Santo Domingo.- A Catholic Church Archbishop as well as the Immigration Agency director yesterday rebuked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statements Wednesday on Dominican Republic’s treatment of Haitians, and asked Washington to practice what it preaches by doing more for the impoverished country.
Santiago archbishop Ramon de la Rosa y Carpio asked the U.S. government to provide more funds to help Haiti, instead of “washing its hands blaming the Dominican Republic of violating Haitians’ rights and pressing the country to bear responsibility of immigration which is the Haiti Government’s problem and not of the Dominicans."
Immigration Agency director Jose Ricardo Taveras said the country is more concerned with the Haitians and Haiti than the international community and the nation Clinton represents, by irresponsibly leaving the problem’s burden entirely on Dominicans.
Taveras said he agrees with U.S. Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano’s position of conducting deportations en masse to guarantee her country’s national security.
“What I truly believe is that the Secretary (Clinton) was induced to the error, because here there’re no nationality problems. The Dominican Constitution is very clearly who are Dominicans and who are not. Here what there is, is a problem of an irregular immigration.”