US and Canada Should Receive Five Million Haitians Says Legislator in the Dominican Republic
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican – The President of the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC), Federico Antún Batlle, says that in the wake of the crisis in neighboring Haiti, the governments of the United States, Canada and France should open their doors to at least five million Haitians,
Batlle made the proposal as he declared that the solution to the economic, political, and social crisis that Haiti is experiencing is the responsibility of the “great nations” which now want to try to impose on the Dominican Republic that it receive thousands of Haitians as refugees.
According to the PRSC president, this is “absolutely unacceptable because our territory is already saturated with citizens from the neighboring country.”
Based on this, he warned France, Canada, and the United States, that the Dominican Republic can no longer bear more Haitian migration, “and therefore, that proposal from international organizations is flatly rejected by Dominican society.”
“Right now it is estimated that there are more than two million Haitians living in our territory, the vast majority of them irregularly, so we cannot admit a single Haitian more,” he added.
Speaking with journalists earlier this week at the PRSC headquarters after concluding a meeting with senior leaders of that organization, he suggested that the United Nations desist from its “diplomatic pressures” to accept Haitian refugee camps in the Dominican Republic.
“The UN, instead of looking to our territory as a solution to the Haitian crisis, should try to get those great nations to receive a part of the Haitian population as refugees,” he added.
He proposed that France should receive at least three million Haitians, Canada – two million, and the United States one million, as well as other countries receiving a smaller proportion.
He believes that if the UN wants to solve the problem of violence and insecurity in Haiti, “it should help establish those shelters in areas where criminal gangs do not have control or influence.”
He pointed out that, according to information from the Haitian authorities , the violence of the armed gangs is concentrated in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, “which means that in much of that territory the violence is minimal or non-existent, so the UN should take those areas to open those refugee centers.”
The reformist leader said, finally, the proposal should be added to that of establishing a kind of “Marshall Plan” to pacify and rebuild the neighboring country, where violence has worsened in recent weeks.
