An article in the Dec. 9 New York Times includes several shocking pictures of Haitians who were shoved into cages by Dominican immigration officials, and then placed on trucks that carried them across the border into Haiti, victims of a mass deportation sweep ordered by Dominican President Luis Abinader last October to rid the country of Haitians fleeing gang violence and social breakdown at home. Young men, pregnant women, small children, some unaccompanied by adults, are crammed into cages in conditions suggesting images of a Confederate slave market or similar Caribbean markets in the 18th or 19th centuries—human beings treated like animals. A depraved and bestial policy.
Historically, the Dominican Republic has served as an escape valve for Haitians fleeing widespread poverty and insecurity. But in the last two years, as gang violence has escalated to intolerable levels, and poverty and displacement have soared, more Haitians sought refuge in the Dominican Republic, their neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, where some jobs and social services are available. Thousands of pregnant Haitian women cross the border to have their babies, so they become legal Dominican citizens. No more.
In October, Abinader ordered immigration officials to begin sweeping Haitians off the streets, often picking people up indiscriminately and brutally, whether they have legal status or not. Some weren’t Haitian but had black skin. The President warned that if the international community wouldn’t resolve Haiti’s security crisis, he would handle the problem himself, beginning by deporting 10,000 Haitians a week. As of Oct. 2, he has deported 71,000 Haitians.
The history of Dominican-Haitian relations is long and complex. Dominicans resent that after the 1804 Haitian Revolution and declaration of independence, Haiti governed its side of the island for 22 years. President Abinader ordered the immigration sweep on 87th anniversary of an Oct. 2, 1937 horrific massacre of thousands of Haitians ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. In 2010, a reform of the Dominican Constitution eliminated the right to birthright citizenship for children of undocumented Haitian immigrants. Three years later, the constitutional court made the measure retroactive, annulling Dominican citizenship for tens of thousands of people born to Haitian parents.
