Migration authorities to clamp down on beggars and traffickers

Santo Domingo.- TheMigration Department (DGM) informed on Friday that it would increase vigilanceand migratory operations to locate and detain the gangs behind the groups ofHaitians begging on street corners and public areas in the capital and other cities.

Thecommunications media have been reporting for some time that minors and womenwith babies in arms, all Haitian nationals, are controlled by a gang that sendsthem to beg on street corners around the cities

The Migrationoffice says that these scenes had almost completely vanished since last August,when teams of inspectors started to take nationwide measures to identifyforeigners with irregular migratory status, but now they appear to have takenadvantage of the Christmas season to return to some streets and public places.

The migrationauthorities warn that they are aware of the situations that are being reportedand that they will take action as they did last August when the period duringwhich the Government stopped the migration inspections came to an end.

“We are going todetain…” says the DGM statement, “whoever is working to place children atintersections to wash windshields and to send Haitian women with minors to begon the streets”.

In a pressrelease, the DGM says that “we will continue our interdiction operations andwill imprison those responsible for this reprehensible practice, and they willbe taken to court, and if they are of another nationality, they will bedeported to their own country following the procedures set out for thispurpose.

“We will clearthe streets of this type of begging and will punish those responsible for thisillegal and degrading practice,” warned the Migration Department.

The DGM statesthat it will take strong measures against the people trafficking rings in orderto end this “form of exploitation that denigrates the safety and integrity ofthe people and violates their human rights”.