Santo Domingo, Jul 10 (EFE).- The Dominican Republic said Friday amid a bilateral spat over the thorny issue of immigration that Haiti’s government is to blame for the large numbers of people who cross the border in search of employment, saying Port-au-Prince “has been unable to carry out policies that boost its people’s living standards.”

The Dominican president’s office leveled the criticism in comments on Twitter, where it also posted testimonials from Haitians who have regularized their immigration status under a government program whose registration deadline expired on June 17.

The government said 288,486 foreigners, nearly all of them Haitians, took advantage of the 18-month window and registered for the program to avoid deportation.

It also cited the president of the Dominican Agribusiness Board, Osmar Benitez as saying that 60 percent of Haitian farmworkers in the Dominican Republic registered for the program, known as the National Regularization Plan for Foreigners with Irregular Migration Status.

Thousands of other Haitians were unable to regularize their status because the Haitian government did not provide them with the necessary documentation despite “all the facilities and support offered by the Dominican government,” the president’s office said.

Because of this situation, nearly 37,000 Haitians who were unable to regularize their status “have decided to return voluntarily to Haiti,” it added.

“Many returned with the hope of getting a passport there, applying for a visa at the consulate and returning to work in the Dominican Republic.”

The Haitian government “has been unable to carry out policies that create employment, confidence, investment, and (quality) health care and education for its people,” the Dominican president’s office said.

That situation persists “despite the goodwill and support of other governments,” notably the Dominican Republic.

“Instead of striving to improve their living conditions, the Haitian government encourages thousands of its citizens to go to the Dominican Republic,” one Twitter post read.

The Haitian government “understands this as a way to get the pressure, the popular demands, off its back.”

Port-au-Prince has absolutely no desire for its migrants to return home and “to cover up that truth they invent … a supposed new humanitarian crisis.”

“They put forth the absurd notion that if Haitians return to their homeland they’ll destabilize the political system and endanger the elections,” the president’s office said.

The Dominican government’s latest comments coincide with the arrival of an Organization of American States mission to evaluate the immigration crisis and prepare a report on the situation. EFE