The National Federation of Rice Growers (Fenarroz) asked to change the migrant deportation plan for a regularization program for immigrants that does not hinder agricultural production, which currently depends on foreign labor.
Directors of Fenarroz propose that article 135 of the labor code, which establishes that 80% of the total number of workers in a company must be made up of Dominicans and the rest can be foreigners, must be modified because for agriculture the provision “does not It is achievable.”
During his participation as Marcelo Reyes, president of Fenarroz, Iván Tió Pimentel, former president, Marcos Rodríguez and Santo Paulino, said that they view the issue of deportations of immigrants, especially Haitian nationals, with great concern.
They added that the majority of the labor force in the agricultural sector is foreign, mostly Haitian citizens, which leads to confusion when a producer transports these workers to their farms, since in some cases they are identified as drug traffickers. illegal.
They expressed the concern in the country about the large number of illegal immigrants from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
However, they said that the reality is that the country has created the conditions, through social subsidy programs and the receipt of remittances, so that many Dominicans do not want to work in the fields, with Haitian labor being the one that supplies the need for workers in the agricultural sector.
In addition, as happens in other countries, the most rudimentary and heavy tasks are not those that are generally carried out by foreign labor.
That is why they asked to guarantee the availability of workers for sensitive crops such as rice, banana, plantain, coffee, beans, cassava, among others.
They said that the number of foreign workers that the agricultural sector needs is already in the country, so they advocated for a regularization program that would allow them to be identified and located when necessary, in addition to allowing them to be registered in the Security System. Social if they qualify for that.
They suggested providing immigrants with a card if necessary, which should have a cost and that those who do business with deportations be controlled.
