Politico sees plot behind call for amnesty for undocumented Haitians

Santo Domingo.- Conservative FNP minority party senior leader Vinicio Castillo yesterday said the suggestion that the Dominican government grant amnesty to hundreds of thousands of Haitians living illegally in the country is part of an international campaign to pressure incoming president Danilo Medina not to enforce the Immigration Act or the legislation’s regulations.

"Nothing the Dominican people are seeing in the last 45 days in this period of transition is chance," Castillo said in reference to the proposal by UN Development Program (UNDP) local representative Valerie Julliand, who has stoked a hornet’s nest with her suggestion that undocumented Haitians in Dominican territory be waived from their illegal status.

The decades-long immmigration debate turned viral last week when Haitian historian Paul Josep Batiste suggested that his compatriots be are allowed free movement across the border, which in his view would control the massive influx of illegal Haitians.

But Castillo, quoted by elcaribe.com.do, affirms that these comments are by no means incidental or coincidental, and instead respond to an international plot to keep the Dominican government from effectively enforcing its immigration policy. "The statements from that Haitian professor, the UN representative and all the NGOs which receive funds from abroad, are to exert pressure."