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OAS urges dialog on Haitian deportations from Dominican Republic
The Organization of American States (OAS) has recommended mechanisms to establish dialog between the Dominican Republic and Haiti about ongoing deportations and helped those affected, especially those most vulnerable.
The recommendations were made in a report that was compiled after an OAS team visited the 2 countries earlier this month to gather information on the situation of Haitian migrants, following the deportations ordered by the Dominican Republic. Secretary General Luis Almagro presented the report to member states in the Permanent Council of the OAS yesterday.
The OAS mission said it recognized that there are people at risk of being without any recognized nationality and that there are displaced populations living under precarious conditions.
It also noted that while Haitian authorities recognized that, as a sovereign country, the Dominican Republic had a right to establish and implement its own immigration policies, they also believe that “any transfer of people should proceed according to previously established and agreed international standards”.
Almagro said there should be a meeting between representatives from the two sides and the OAs should facilitate that dialogue and support the process of registration of migrants underway in the Dominican Republic.
“The countries are willing to resume their dialog, under certain conditions, and to establish dispute-resolution mechanisms on the migration issues over the short, medium, and long terms,” the mission reported.
The 5 recommendations in the report are:
1. Facilitate a dialog between the 2 countries, including the organization of a meeting between the two countries in the most appropriate location accepted by both sides.
2. That the OAS facilitate a dialogue between the 2 countries, to find paths of solution to the present difficulties.
3. Establish a mechanism of understanding, in the framework of international standards, that allows for the transfer of people between the 2 countries.
4. Use the good offices of the OAS to strengthen the processes of registration underway, in particular in the support for the Programme d’Identification et de Documentation des Immigrants Haitiens through the Universal Civil Identity Project of the Americas of the OAS.
