Over 17,000 undocumented Haitians return voluntarily to their country

Santo Domingo.– Over 17,000 undocumented Haitians have voluntarily left the Dominican territory, mainly those who didn’t registered for the government plan to legalize aliens.

Immigration officials said that with documents slow to arrive from Haiti and Dominican registration offices overwhelmed by the crowds of applicants, over 180,000 people were still unregistered by the June 17 deadline.

Immigration Agency director Ruben Paulino said 17,456 have so far left for Haiti voluntarily, and more than 800 of them left on buses provided by the Dominican government.

According to immigration figures, as of the registration deadline, over 450,000 Haitians were estimated to live in the Dominican Republic, which represents 90 percent of the immigrants and 5.4 percent of the total population.