Authorities in the Dominican Republic have detained thousands of Haitian migrants, and all those who appear to be from Haiti, and deported them to a country plagued by instability and lethal gang violence, advocates say.
The forced evictions, which human rights teams say have intensified this month, have sparked complaints abroad and calls for restraint amid reports of evictions of unaccompanied children, pregnant women and other vulnerable people.
In the Dominican Republic, the majority of the population identifies as mestizo, while the country’s neighbor, Haiti, has a mostly black population. This has fuelled accusations that xenophobia and racism are expulsions, as part of a broader trend of discrimination against Haitians. in the Dominican Republic.
Some deportees have never set foot in Haiti, which is suffering from emerging rates of hunger, excessive poverty and a cholera epidemic, as well as an upsurge in violence. .
William Charpantier, coordinator of MENAMIRD, a national roundtable for migrants and refugees in the Dominican Republic, said Dominican police and armed forces hold Haitians on the streets like “anyone who looks Haitian. “
More than 20,000 people were deported in nine days this month, Charpantier said, adding some Dominican nationals of Haitian descent.
An official source familiar with the case told Al Jazeera that, if the current speed of deportations continues, some 40,000 more people will be sent from the Dominican Republic to Haiti in November. This is in addition to the 60,000 who have been deported in recent months. said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
UNICEF said around 1,800 unaccompanied minors have been deported from the country this year alone, a number denied by the Dominican Republic. UNICEF is working with spousal organizations on the Haitian border to receive the children.
“These deportations led to the separation of families. People with valid documents have been deported, other people born here in the Dominican Republic have been deported,” Charpantier told Al Jazeera.
“These are not deportations. It’s racial persecution.
The accelerated deportations come after decades of strained relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share a border of about 400 kilometers (248 miles) on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
Some 500,000 Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, a country of 11 million people. They are basically found in the Dominican agricultural sector, as well as in the structural and service industries.
Many have been in the country for years, as Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic began en masse after Haiti’s American profession in 1915.
“They needed plantation staff to make the filthy paintings that Dominicans didn’t need because wages were low and situations were horrible,” said Georges Fouron, a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook who specializes in immigrant identities. and Haiti.
While the Dominican economy still relies on Haitian labor, Fouron explained that the long-standing crusade of concern around the “haitization” of Dominican society persists. In the past, those concerns have led to violence: a bloodbath in 1937 under Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. It left thousands of Haitians dead along the border.
Now, with Haiti facing a crisis situation, “the concern is that there will be an overflow of gangs and all these activities taking positions in Haiti,” Fouron told Al Jazeera. He predicts that it will “generate the negative feelings” opposed to Haitians “rather than alleviate them. “
Haiti has experienced months of escalating gang violence following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The political process is paralyzed, most state establishments do not function and the lack of trust afflicts to the maximum each and every facet of daily life, specifically in the capital, Port -au-Prince.
“There is no way [deportees] can in Haiti. Many of them speak a little Haitian Creole. They don’t know the social realities of Haiti, so they are in limbo, and after a while, what do they do?They cross again,” Fouron said.
Bridget Wooding, director of OBMICA, a think tank in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, said the Dominican Republic has traditionally used deportations to migrate “in the absence of a regularization plan that works,” which would create pathways for migrants to gain legal rights. residence.
Efforts in recent years to regularize the migratory prestige of Haitians in the Dominican Republic have stalled, Wooding said. Approximately 200,000 others who lost their legal prestige were exposed to deportation.
“What turns out to be a revolving door scenario where deportees then return to the country because it’s transparent that, one way or another, the Dominican economy wants Haitian immigrants to work,” he told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, as Dominican President Luis Abinader seeks re-election in 2024, Wooding believes Haitians are being “instrumentalized” for political ends, portrayed as an “enemy door. “
“They’re between a rock and a hard place,” he said. On the one hand, it turns out that the Dominican Republic doesn’t need it. On the other hand, it’s very, very complicated for them to go through again. to their communities of origin because of gang violence in Haiti, the economic situation, etc.
In early November, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) suggested all countries suspend all returns to Haiti due to the “devastating humanitarian and security crisis” in the country.
A few days later, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, in particular, named the Dominican Republic in a call to avoid expulsions. of intolerance based on national, racial or ethnic origin, or immigration status,” Turk said.
Former Haitian Prime Minister Claude Joseph criticized the Dominican government, calling the deportations “inhumane” and “discriminatory. “Meanwhile, the United States issued an alert this month, warning travelers that they could face “increased interaction with Dominican authorities, especially for darker-skinned U. S. citizens and U. S. citizens of African descent. “
The US embassy in Santo Domingo said Americans said they have been “delayed, detained or subjected to extensive questioning at ports of entry and in other encounters with immigration officials about their skin color” in recent months.
“There are reports that detainees are held in overcrowded detention centers, without the option to challenge their detention and without access to food or toilets, for days at a time, before being released or deported to Haiti. “
But the Dominican government has rejected recent criticism, saying it has the right to set its border policies in accordance with the country’s statutes as well as foreign laws. On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry also called the U. S. allegations “baseless. “
The crisis in Haiti “severely affects” Dominican national security and Haitian migrants are depleting local resources, the ministry said. Capabilities. The Dominican Republic can’t take it anymore.
Dominican President Abinader also appeared to redouble his efforts last week when he pledged to increase deportations, The Associated Press and other media outlets reported. Abinader’s government is also running to build a wall on the Dominican border with Haiti.
The Dominican Foreign Ministry and the country’s project to the UN responded to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.
According to Al Jazeera’s official source, in recent months, the Dominican government has detained women to evict them from hospitals, or taken women and girls to morning searches in their homes. Other people were not given a chance to dress before being taken to a deportation point.
“The execution of evictions in the last month is 4 times higher than the overall rate of evictions,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Charpantier at MENAMIRD called on the Dominican government to avoid evictions. “What we are asking – not easy – of the government is to suspend evictions and respect human rights,” he said.
“The way they bring up evictions is to identify black people. Borders can, but within the country, they cannot continue to persecute and circulate black immigrants.