By Roque Planas Huffington Post Latino Voices | Posted on Wednesday, November 13, 2013, at 9:55 a.m. ET.
Representatives of the most prominent Latino political and civil rights organizations in the United States wrote an open letter to Dominican President Danilo Medina Sánchez asking him to block the implementation of a Constitutional Court ruling that would deprive Dominican children of Haitian immigrants from Dominican citizenship.
According to the Open Society Justice Initiative, the ruling could affect as many as 200,000 people.
“If implemented, the court’s decision stands to cause a humanitarian crisis, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands of people stateless, facing mass deportation and discrimination,” say the letter signed by the Hispanic Federation, Latino Justice PRLDEF and the League of United Latin American Citizens, among others. “We respectfully request that you act immediately to stop the implementation of this ruling.”
“[T]o many Dominicans, this is a grave crisis, the reinstating of the old racism that many have fought against,” a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece signed by Mark Kurlansky, Julia Alvarez, Edwidge Danticat and Junot Diaz reads. “To Dominican Americans, it is an absurdity. As Edward Paulino, a history professor at John Jay College in New York, said, ‘I, a Dominican American born and bred in the U.S., have a right to Dominican citizenship, but those born and raised in DR of Haitian parents do not.’"
Read more at Huffington Post Latino Voices
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