Authorities in the Dominican Republic said in June that about 210,000 undocumented immigrants in the country, about 90% of whom are of Haitian descent, had just a few days to sign with writers or face deportation. Thousands have fled to neighboring Haiti and many more. could go on, says Michele Wucker, author of Why Roosters Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Fight for Hispaniola. Wucker says the pressure on Haitians is part of a cycle of tensions between the two countries that share the island of Hispaniola, reflecting political and economic tensions. In that case, he says, the Dominican Republic is preparing for next year’s general elections and Haitians are an ideal target for a government that preys on nationalist sentiments.
The Dominican Republic has a long history of discrimination against Haitian migrants and their descendants. What’s motivating the most recent crackdown?
Dominican-Haitian tensions tend to flare up whenever there is something else going on politically or economically in either country. The Dominican legislature recently approved consecutive presidential reelection, which means that President [Danilo] Medina can run again in the [May 2016] election. Politicians have long played to anti-Haitian attitudes during times of political tension as a way to gain the support of entrenched ultranationalists who hold sway in the political parties. But the dynamic is different this year, as many Dominicans support formalizing the status of at least some of the population of Haitian descent, which the ultranationalists oppose.
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It’s been just over five years since the earthquake in Haiti. There was a brief moment of what seemed to be a brighter future for cooperation between the two countries. But the high economic and human cost that the earthquake has caused in Haiti has led to an increase in migration to the Dominican Republic, or at least the belief in it. After the earthquake, Haiti faced more than a million internally displaced people, a cholera outbreak, political unrest, and a severe economic contraction. In the years that followed, much of this expansion reflected reconstruction, not new economic dynamism. Economic unrest in Haiti is driving immigration to the Dominican Republic and hampering the Haitian market for Dominican exports. with those who have left or been forced to leave the Dominican Republic.
What effect could this have on the Haitian and Dominican economies?
“Up to five percent of the Dominican GDP on the Haitian and Dominican-Haitian population. »
I’ve seen estimates that as much as 5 percent of the Dominican Republic’s GDP depends on the Haitian and Dominican-Haitian population there. A lot of Dominican farms and businesses, as well as, ironically, the Dominican government, depend on Haitians to perform important tasks in the economy. [Editor’s note: An estimated 500,000 people of Haitian descent live in the Dominican Republic.] While we’ve seen significant numbers of people leaving the Dominican Republic, it hasn’t been as all-encompassing as it could be. That’s not to minimize that tens of thousands of people have left, by the Dominican government’s own estimates, and that scores of thousands of people still living in the Dominican Republic face an uncertain future.
For Haiti, the big question is where are these other people going to live?Many of them have limited ties to Haiti. What are they going to do? In 1991, there was a mass expulsion from the Dominican Republic in retaliation for the Haitian government’s complaint about the way Dominicans treated Haitians in the sugar cane fields. These mass expulsions had a destabilizing effect on Haiti at a time of wonderful political tension. This, too, will have economic, political and other repercussions in Haiti.
Human rights teams say around a million people are at risk of deportation, a process the Dominican government says is not underway. Are those fears of mass deportations more likely to materialize?
Hundreds of thousands more people are unlikely to be deported in the current crisis, as some observers fear. The Dominican economy is based on the painting of Dominicans of Haitian origin and recent Haitian immigrants, as well as industry with Haiti. It is not in the interest of the Dominican government to further destabilize Haiti through mass expulsions. And while the Dominican government has kept company in the face of foreign criticism, it would not take advantage of mass expulsions, making it a pariah.
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Previous waves of evictions and so-called voluntary departures have affected between 50,000 and 70,000 more people, which will most likely be similar to what will happen this year. Tens of thousands of people have already left the Dominican Republic; An estimate in early July through the Dominican Migration Agency was 37,000. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed through the International Organization for Migration in July had left voluntarily. More than a third said they had been deported, despite the Dominican Republic’s claim that there have been no deportations since late 2013.
In 2013, the Dominican Republic’s court ruled that approximately another 200,000 people born in the Dominican Republic and of Haitian descent were no longer eligible for citizenship. However, a 2014 law subsidized by President Danilo Medina aims to renationalize many of those other people. What is your legal status?
It’s complicated. According to the Dominican government, they are no longer citizens. The official version is that there is a procedure for either person to regain their citizenship, which was scrapped in the Constitutional Court’s 2013 decision.
The deadline has passed for more recent migrants who wanted to naturalize. The Dominican government hasn’t properly acknowledged the extent of the problems with that process. Of the nearly 290,000 people who applied for regularization, just over 1 percent had been approved by the June 17 deadline. Part of the problem was Haitian authorities’ inability to meet the demand for help in obtaining documents.There were people who expended significant efforts to get their papers in order but haven’t gotten the paperwork that they need.
The solution could be to create a robust, legitimate system for getting peoples’ papers in order, ideally with international monitoring to make sure that the process is going the way that the Dominican government claims it is.
Haitian Prime Minister Evans Paul said the expulsions were causing a humanitarian crisis and that thousands more people were believed to have been displaced to camps along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. What would happen if tens of thousands of other people were resettled – by force or selection – in Haiti?
Refugee camps will revel in some of the same disorder as that which followed the earthquake. The question is, what kind of resources will be directed to those places?International humanitarian aid is needed to ensure food and security. The protection of women is a major factor in the aftermath of the earthquake, and it will be in these camps as well.
The bigger question is what happens in the long term. Will these people stay in the camps indefinitely? That’s not a great solution, but how do you find places for them in the economy at a time when Haitians living in Haiti are having a hard time finding jobs?
“There’s been a lot of uncertainty lately about the leaders of the Dominican Republic. It’s evolving a lot.
What makes this wave of migration more worrisome is that it will likely be more difficult to return to the Dominican Republic than after a few longer rounds of deportation. In the past, when other people were deported, many ended up returning. This time, the intensity of the shock will make it more difficult for other people to return. Lately there is a group in the Dominican Republic that is attacking the foreign community, insisting on their sovereignty, insisting on their right to do whatever they want. But the question is: just because you can do something, is it the most productive option for your country or for the economy?Is it more productive for the many Dominicans who have a close circle of family and economic ties to Haiti?Is this more productive for Dominicans who have benefited from coverage of the country’s commitment to foreign human rights standards?I think the answer to all those questions is no.
The Dominican government is investing significant amounts of money in [public relations] and lobbying firms but has been isolating itself from the rest of the hemisphere and the international community. Internally, it’s done a good job of getting out its message of sovereignty and convincing Dominicans that the naturalization and regularization processes were serious, even though there’s extensive documentation of problems with those systems. Throughout the past, one of the strategies of authoritarian governments in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti has been to isolate the country. That’s bad for Dominican citizens and for Haitian citizens, as well as for the economy. When governments pick scapegoats, turn to this ultranationalist line, and crack down on immigrants, it usually means there are serious cracks in the foundation of the country’s economy and political structure. What is the Dominican government trying to mask here? There’s a lot of uncertainty about the leadership of the Dominican Republic right now. It’s very much in flux.
The Organization of American States has called for a discussion on the Dominican Republic’s migration policies. Is there a diplomatic solution?
He wanted to see a diplomatic approach, and the involvement of other Latin American countries could be helpful. The emphasis should be on the fact that the Dominican Republic keeps its word: it intends to regularize other people, naturalize them, and rectify the situation. [Many other at-risk individuals] were born in the Dominican Republic according to a letter stating that they are Dominican citizens. Many of them have not even been in Haití. La claim that they are no longer Dominicans or stateless is legally questionable.
It is also vital to note that many Dominicans and Haitians work very closely together, and many Dominicans and Haitians in the diaspora would like to see this scenario change. Even as we focus on conflict, it is vital not to forget the modalities of meaningful cooperation. The two countries have extensive ties as well as ancient and cultural similarities. In many cases, it is not necessarily because those countries have experienced tensions because they are very different, but because they are very similar.