Dominican Republic certifies citizenship of 55,000
Source: Yahoo! News / AP
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The Dominican Republic announced Friday that it has certified the nationality of about 55,000 people who had spent eight years in bureaucratic limbo because their citizenship was in doubt.
The locally born descendants of Haitian immigrants had been on the point of losing their citizenship because the government and courts argued their parents had been in the country illegally. Tens of thousands had trouble enrolling in school, travelling, getting formal work, marrying or registering children for lack of residence documents.
Under a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, the measure affected offspring of undocumented immigrants born between 1929 and 2007, leading to an outcry by human rights advocates.
President Danilo Medina announced the certification Friday at a summit in Guatemala.
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