In Tallahassee, Focus Shifts From Outsiders to Insiders
Ralph De La Cruz: Republican leaders suggest they may be too busy balancing the budget and dealing with redistricting to pass an immigration bill in next year's session.
Illegal Haitian Workers in Demand
Dustin Volz: While demand for cheap labor keeps many Haitians employed in the Dominican Republic, increased immigration is placing unbearable strains on a country struggling to provide health care, education and social services to its own residents.
Educating Children Proves Daunting Challenge
Joanne Ingram: While education in the Dominican Republic is mandatory and free for children ages 5 through 14, regardless of their immigration status, many children do not continue to ninth grade because they lack a Dominican birth certificate or other official documentation that proves they are citizens.
Children Struggle to Survive on Santo Domingo Streets
Bastien Inzaurralde and Brandon Quester: Hundreds of children roam the streets of Santo Domingo. Some are Dominican and some Haitian. Many are both. But few know how to legally prove their citizenship.
Religious Weigh God’s Law Against Country’s Law
Nick Newman: The Dominican government accuses the Jesuit Refugee Service of being part of an international conspiracy to unify the island of Hispaniola.
Dirty and Dangerous Water Threatens Country’s Health
Bastien Inzaurralde: Waterborne diseases -- often the result of poor sanitation and lack of treated, drinkable water -- that are a rarity elsewhere are common in Independencia, the poverty-stricken province where Batey 9 is located, near the border with Haiti.