By Caitlin Hu and Etant Dupain, CNN
Hundreds of young people have been deported from the Dominican Republic without their parents, according to UNICEF, amid a broad government crusade to expel suspected undocumented immigrants from the country.
The United Nations Children’s Agency has gained at least 1,800 unaccompanied youths handed over through the Dominican immigration government to Haiti since the beginning of the year, a spokesperson told CNN on Monday.
Many arrive without identity documents and are “sent” to the country among adult deportees, the spokesman also said, raising how the Dominican government verified that they belonged to Haiti.
Back in the Dominican Republic, which fills the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, migrant detention centers detain parents without children.
“One woman had a diaper bag with her, but the baby. [Immigration officers] had told her she could bring her baby with her and they would take her on the bus; However, they brought the baby on the bus. “said Yoana Kuzmova, a researcher at the Dominican University. Think Tank on Migration Policy Center for Migration Observation and Social Development in the Caribbean.
The Dominican Republic has long sought to reduce the Haitian population within its borders. But this year’s latest wave of deportations is moving with staggering speed and scale, prompting critics to accuse the Caribbean nation’s government of racial discrimination, chaotic executions and abuses against individuals and circles. of family members’ rights while immigration officials expel others from the country.
The U. S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic warned blacks and “darker-skinned Americans” that they risked “increased interaction” with the Dominican government as part of the immigration crackdown. On Saturday, the embassy described “reports of unequal treatment” of U. S. citizens over skin color.
But Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader has rejected calls to halt deportations, arguing that the country already supports neighboring Haiti more than any other country in the world.
The Dominican Republic’s immigration directorate did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. But in a statement following the article’s publication, the migration firm denied all cases of children separated from their parents since 2020. He quoted Venancio Alcántara, general director of the migration firm. , which describes “specific procedures” for dealing with minors.
“As long as minors are accompanied by their parents, and when the parents have been located, minors are referred to the National Council for Children and Adolescents, which will take care of them,” he said.
In October alone, another 14,801 people were sent to Haiti from the Dominican Republic, according to records from the Haitian aid organization Groupe d’Appui des Rapatriés et Réfugiés, an average of 477 more people per day.
Videos on social media that appear to show the Dominican immigration government conducting raids have caused panic among Haitians and other people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, with some legal citizens even telling CNN they are afraid to leave their homes.
On Sunday, Haiti’s Communications Ministry called on its neighbor to respect “human dignity,” bringing up the “stunning images . . . who drew attention to the inhuman and degrading remedy of Haitian citizens in the Dominican Republic. “
The immigration network has taken away other people regardless of nationality or legal status, according to former detainees and experts interviewed via CNN, as well as the statement from the U. S. Embassy.
A Haitian, who lives and works legally in the Dominican Republic, told CNN that immigration officials broke into his home in the middle of the night and refused to heed his arguments.
“I slept in my space with my family. At 3 a. m. M. (local time), an organization of immigration officials broke down my door and stopped me. They didn’t ask for my papers or anything; They wouldn’t let me speak,” said a boy of Haitian descent, whose legal paintings allowed to be renovated when he was arrested.
“They just grabbed me and took me away, I told them I had papers and they didn’t even listen to me,” he added.
He spent the night in miserable situations before being released the next day.
A video he secretly filmed and shared with CNN showed a concrete construction with cramped stalls filled with food and blackened by trash, and a room with narrow beds, where at least 15 other male detainees were waiting.
“They treat them like animals. Once they are imprisoned, they are left to sleep on the floor without feeding. They destroyed other people’s documents and, in some cases, other people had no chance to show their documents,” said Sam Guillaume, a spokesman. for GARR.
He added that his organization won several Dominicans in Haiti who were kidnapped and deported by mistake.
The Dominican Republic’s efforts to deport other people of Haitian descent from the country date back years.
In 2013, the country’s Constitutional Court controversially ruled that Dominicans born in the country to undocumented parents be stripped of their citizenship, rendering tens of thousands of people stateless with no other country in which to seek safe haven.
Colloquially known as “The Sentence” or the Sentence, “it has created a situation of statelessness on a scale never before seen in the Americas,” according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Many Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic rely on short-term residency permits to stay in the country legally through a “regularization plan. “But Kuzmova, the legal researcher, says she hears “time and time again” that they threaten to be deported while waiting to renew the ones she lets in.
“As for Haitian migrants, the apartment permit is valid for one year and takes a year to renew. So the truth is that if that user eligible for a permit is stopped on the street, they may not have a valid document on them,” she says.
“What other people say is that when they pick you up with an expired card, they destroy it. And that essentially evidences that you had to be in the regulation plan.
A new executive order, issued last week to create a specialized law enforcement unit in fighting illegal occupation, may also be used to target other people of Haitian descent living in historic sugarcane plantation villages known as bateyes, which once attracted large numbers of migrant workers.
“The other people living there now are largely retired seniors who worked on the plantations and don’t have land titles. So this may be another way to instrumentalize the police to enforce evictions,” Kuzmova said.
As Haiti struggles to emerge from interrelated political and security crises, the UN has continuously called on the Dominican Republic to avoid sending others there.
“The relentless armed violence and systematic violations of human rights in Haiti have lately enabled the safe, dignified and sustainable return of Haitians to the country. I reiterate my call to all countries in the region, joining the Dominican Republic, to end deportation. of Haitians,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said earlier this month.
Two days later, Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader responded with derision, describing Turk as “unacceptable and irresponsible,” and saying he would instead speed up deportations.
El-CNN-Wire™
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