Dominican President Danilo Medina offered a full-throated defense of his government’s controversial changes to citizenship and immigration law in a speech Friday. which marked the country’s independence from neighboring Haiti.
In a speech marking the country’s independence from neighboring Haiti, Medina said he would refuse to back down under pressure from human rights groups and implied that deportations would resume in June.
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Those who did not register in time to claim Dominican citizenship under the law, along with undocumented immigrants who entered the country before 2011, still have until June 16 to register with the government as migrants to normalize their status, Medina said.
Fewer than 9,000 people registered for the path to naturalization under the program before the Jan. 31 deadline, leading Amnesty International to criticize the government’s outreach efforts and alleged bureaucratic obstacles. The human rights watchdog estimates that as many as 110,000 might have qualified.
