The Legal Status of Haitian Migrants in the Dominican Republic

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In the Dominican Republic, there is another legal regime that the Dominican government has not respected. Decree No. 417 was issued in 1990 under international pressure to regulate the largely undocumented Haitian labor force working in the Dominican sugar cane industry.⁵⁵ The stated purpose of this executive decree was to legalize the status of Haitians and their descendants in the country. Despite the fanfare surrounding Decree 417-90 and related measures, little if any progress was achieved in this regard.⁵⁶ This is due as much to lack of enforcement as to a lack of underlying political will.⁵⁷ To this day, Dominican authorities, for the most part, record some Haitian migrants as workers but generally do not legalize their migratory status.⁵⁸ This means that most Haitian workers are not provided immigration or employment documents, and so are at constant risk of deportation.⁵⁹

Haitian migrants face similar obstacles in legalizing their status as residents. Tens of thousands of Haitian-born individuals have lived in the Dominican Republic for long periods of time, sometimes decades; many of them have developed family and other close personal ties to the Dominican Republic.⁶⁰ Yet few of them have any documentation whatsoever, residing with most of their Dominican born children in a state of "permanent illegality".⁶¹ Dominican law does not provide clear guidelines or accessible opportunities for Haitian migrants to obtain Dominican nationality based on residence or family ties.⁶²

Text contributed by Columbia University School of Law, Human Rights Clinic, May 2001

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