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Immigrant groups object to children?s register in Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo.- A group of organizations has criticized the Central Electoral Board?s decision to create a special register for children born to foreigners, claiming that it would institutionalize discrimination against children on the basis of their parents? origin. They said that registering these children in a separate book would automatically deprive them of their rights to Dominican nationality, which is established by the ?jus solis? principle in the country's Constitution.

Eddy Tejada, who coordinates the Migration Council (Mesa para las Migraciones), said that this instrument should not have been considered as part of the Law on Migration, on the grounds that the legislation, which was approved in 2004, does not include the rules for its application.

He also said that the Law on Migration includes an immigrant regulation plan but this has not yet been developed, and that the Central Electoral Board (JCE) should have waited for this initiative to be applied before approving the new register.

Tejada said that the Foreigners Register is a retrograde step because nationality is a human right, and this new tool makes it unclear whether the children registered in the book have the right to Dominican nationality.

He said that the only positive thing about the book is that it will organize the registration of immigrants, and that it prevents them from remaining in legal limbo, or stateless, but that it does not contribute anything to solving the nationality issue.

Tejada warned that it could also lead to legal problems, because the International Court of Human Rights ruling in favor of children of Haitian origin that decreed that the Dominican Republic should reform the Civil Registry Law in order to ensure a flexible and simple procedure for obtaining a birth certificate.

He said that approximately 30% of the Dominican population does not have birth certificates, basically due to the civil registry?s expensive and complicated late birth declarations process, and that the time has come for ending this major problem.

The Migration Council is made up of 20 groups, including the Latin American Social Sciences Faculty (FLACSO), the Human Rights Committee, the Haitian Workers Socio-Cultural Movement, the Jesuit Refugee Service, the Dominico-Haitian Women?s Movement and the Community Development Institute.

Last Friday the JCE approved the creation of a Foreigners Register for the purpose of registering children of foreign mothers who do not have the correct Dominican residency documents.

The tribunal assured that this book would provide a record of the children of foreigners resident in the country.