the lack of migration documentation demonstrating regular status (Morales 2020). “No civilized society can afford to have undocumented citizens on its territory.” -President Luis Abinader, País (26 December 2020) Seven years after the Dominican government’s implementation of the National Plan for the Regularization of Foreigners (PNRE, in Spanish) and given the August 2020 change in government: What is the current immigration status of the people who were admitted into the Plan, in particular the majority of Haitian migrants? A study carried out by OBMICA at the end of 2020 highlighted the challenges that persist in the regularization of migrants with an irregular immigration status (OBMICA 2020). The aforementioned study shows that its implementation has not responded to its stated objectives of granting regular status to those who applied. At the same time, it provides evidence of an important undertaking whose sustainability must be upheld by adjudicating a resident status, whether temporary or permanent, and continuing to involve multiple stakeholders, including government institutions, employers, unions and civil society organizations, among others. It should be noted that the competent authorities were simultaneously carrying out the PNRE and registration for the Naturalization Law 169-14 directed at the Dominicans who were denationalized by Sentence168-13. This may have caused confusion for the putative beneficiaries of the different regimes. As of September 21, 2020, deportations (by land) of people suspected of not having a regular immigration status had resumed, ending the moratorium that was in place under the pandemic. Slightly less than half of the eligible people applied for the Plan (using the 2012 National Immigrant Survey ENI-2012 as a benchmark), although they were for the most part approved, with an emphasis on the majority group of Haitian migrants. In this group, the percentage of women enrolled in the Plan roughly corresponds to their percentage (35%) within the Haitian population, according to the ENI-2012. Few people were granted residency, the most common document issued being that of temporary workers. At the end of 2019 official sources anticipated that approximately 200,000 people were going to have to renew their documentation (or change their status if necessary) in 2020 (OBMICA 2020a). There was a notable lack of clarity regarding the type of document granted and the procedures to be carried out for its renewal or to change one’s immigration category in 2019. Many social organizations and their representative networks undertook legal action for the reconsideration of emblematic cases, but the Ministry of the Interior and Police (MIP) has not answered them. Although the General Directorate of Migration (DGM, in Spanish) made a noteworthy effort in 2020 to address the issue of document renewal, supported by the IOM RD, it could not cope in the challenging context of the pandemic. If sustainable solutions that align the Plan with the Migration Law (or modify the Law and/or its regulations) are not found, the timid gains in access to social security, promoted within the framework of the Plan’s execution, could disappear. In the worst case scenario, the situation could revert a generalized situation of irregularity, as was the norm before launching the Plan. It should be noted that many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean face similar challenges, not least in the context of the pandemic. Some good flexible practices are discussed in the section on Access to vaccination. Research Brief: COVID-19 Impacts on Haitian Migrants and their Descendants on the Southern Border of the D.R. 19