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BiggerBill would ‘zone’ the Haiti-Dominican border
Map by Diario Libre.
Santo Domingo.- A bill seeks to prevent foreigners or foreign legal entities from acquiring real estate in what would be called the “border security zone” and establishes that if these national companies have Dominican partners, they cannot transfer or endorse their shares to foreigners.
This is the bill that would establish the Legal Regime for Border Land Property, which was submitted on August 18 by the PLD senator for Elías Piña, Yván Lorenzo. He perished in the previous ordinary legislature.
The proposed law establishes, in article 39, that real estate belonging to the private domain, located in the border security zone, is transferable, for consideration or free of charge, solely in favor of Dominican men and women, according to legally acquired titles, as long as they are registered or re-registered in the corresponding public registry.
Whereas, paragraph 1 of the same article establishes that “foreign individuals and legal entities may not, in fact or in law, acquire real estate in the Border Security Zone under any title, with the exceptions related to lease concessions or authorizations granted by the Executive Power through a Presidential Agreement, when there is a public or social interest, in accordance with this law (if approved) or special laws.”
This is foggy in the context of defining foreigners, does mean Haitians, or all foreigners? This also has a feeling of an agenda of government establishing a new bureaucracy to acquire fees or taxes from the growing development of the Pedernales.
My guess is the bill applies on all foreigners, Haitian or not, probably for security reasons.
Yes, it applies to all foreigners. However, the media in the country and others sometimes have a behavior to say foreigners when they mean Haitians. The behavior is understood by many. This bill relates to the border zone. It hazards the risk of being misunderstood because of how foreigners are to be defined by some.
8 out of every 10 people are Haitian in the border towns. Haiti is not our problem. Haiti is a problem of the Haitians. One thing is what derives from massive illegal immigration, greater than the country’s capacity to deal with it, which is indeed our problem, and another is the poverty of our neighbors. No nation can be forced to accept immigration beyond its strength, nor can it be cornered by the international community to make it give up its migratory rights. The truth is that Haitians cross the border because they find more opportunities here than in their own homeland . The international community wants us to document illegal immigrants whose country has failed to provide an identity. Haitian political and economic elite has not articulated a structure of even minimal health and education for the population.