{"id":15848,"date":"2024-12-10T16:55:58","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T00:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15848"},"modified":"2024-12-10T16:55:59","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T00:55:59","slug":"desperate-haitians-who-fled-to-the-dominican-republic-are-being-sent-back-in-cages-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15848","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Desperate Haitians Who Fled to the Dominican Republic Are Being Sent Back in Cages&#8221;, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By&nbsp;Hogla Enecia P\u00e9rez&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/frances-robles\">Frances Robles<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hogla Enecia P\u00e9rez visited the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and interviewed migrants and social service workers helping them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/\"><\/a><strong>Turmoil in Haiti<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/08\/world\/americas\/haiti-gang-massacre.html\">The Latest<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/17\/world\/americas\/haiti-problems-gangs-crimes.html\">What to Know<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/08\/world\/americas\/haiti-violence-photos.html\">Photos<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/13\/world\/americas\/haiti-gangs-airlines-doctors-without-borders.html\">Gang Violence Worsens<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/09\/world\/americas\/haiti-dominican-republican-cage-trucks.html\">Deportations From Dominican Republic<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/07\/world\/americas\/haiti-gang-massacre-pont-sonde.html\">A Frantic Call for Help<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/12\/05\/multimedia\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-kcwb\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-kcwb-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"A group of people side by side under wearing light clothing.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Haitian migrants being deported in October at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.Credit&#8230;Erika Santelices\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Relations between the neighboring countries on the island of Hispaniola have long been frosty. They are now complicated by up to 10,000 deportations a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Listen to this article\u00a0\u00b7 9:22 min\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/help.nytimes.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/24318293692180\">Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/es\/2024\/12\/09\/espanol\/mundo\/haiti-republica-dominicana-deportaciones-jaulas.html\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cage-like trucks fitted with iron bars that appear designed to carry livestock line up every morning at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vehicles at the El\u00edas Pi\u00f1a border crossing are not loaded with cattle, but with Haitians being deported by the Dominican immigration authorities. They include young men, pregnant women, unaccompanied children and some people who have never lived in Haiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since October, more than 71,000 people have been deported to Haiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rose-Mieline Florvil, 24, who lived in the Dominican Republic for less than a year, said immigration agents recently raided her house in Santiago, in the northern part of the country, one day before dawn and said something along the lines of \u201cBlack woman, come here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI couldn\u2019t run, because I\u2019m pregnant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The extraordinary wave of deportations \u2014 Dominican officials say the goal is 10,000 per week \u2014 reflects a stringent new immigration policy by a country with a complicated and racially charged history with Haiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two nations share the island of Hispaniola, and the Dominican Republic, the far more prosperous of the two, has sounded increasingly loud alarms about shouldering the burden of what experts say is a failing state next door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/12\/05\/multimedia\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-02-wfjg\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-02-wfjg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"People stand behind white iron bars.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Haitians detained for deportation in a police vehicle between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.Credit&#8230;Ricardo Hernandez\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Dire problems in Haiti \u2014 surging&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/08\/world\/americas\/haiti-gang-massacre.html\">gang violence<\/a>, a health infrastructure in ruins and a government with no elected leaders and unable to reverse the country\u2019s slide \u2014 have set off an exodus of people seeking security and livelihoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, Haitian migrants are using an increasing share of Dominican government services, including public health, officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since Haiti\u2019s last president was assassinated more than three years ago, the country has been convulsed by gang violence that has left&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/312477\/number-of-homicides-in-haiti\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">more than 12,000 people dead<\/a>&nbsp;and forced nearly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/08\/world\/americas\/haiti-gangs-refugees-crisis.html\">800,000<\/a>&nbsp;from their homes. (Nearly 200 people were massacred this weekend by a gang in one of Port-au-Prince\u2019s poorest neighborhoods, according to the United Nations.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dominican officials say their country should not serve as an escape valve for a crisis the world has largely ignored. Riding a wave of nationalism, the Dominican president, Luis Abinader,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/presidencia.gob.do\/noticias\/consejo-de-seguridad-y-defensa-nacional-acuerda-operativo-para-repatriar-hasta-10000\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a>the stricter immigration policy in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/12\/05\/multimedia\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-01-wfjg\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-01-wfjg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"A line of trucks with security bars carrying people along a road.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Trucks in a caravan from the Dominican Republic transporting Haitians who lack papers to the border. More than 71,000 Haitians have been deported since October.Credit&#8230;Henry Romero\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Abinader said he had warned the United Nations that if the situation in Haiti did not improve, the Dominican Republic would take \u201cspecial measures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the mass roundups, he said he would beef up controls on the border and deploy specialized units to crack down on the growing numbers of migrants and human traffickers, while respecting human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have to offer explanations to respect our immigration laws,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/redesluis20\/reel\/DAo6yPKvD0x\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the president said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But human rights organizations say the removals have been plagued with abuses and a lack of due process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Dominican authorities say they have had enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe general feeling of the Dominican population is that we are providing social services greater than what the Dominican Republic is responsible for,\u201d the foreign minister, Roberto \u00c1lvarez, said in an interview, \u201cand that the international community has left us alone to attend to Haitian needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eduardo Moxteya Pie, 29, who was born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents, said he had a police report showing that he had reported his national ID card, which proved Dominican citizenship, as lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without the card, he was detained last month as he left his agricultural job and was taken to Haiti, where he lives in a shelter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One 11-year-old boy at a migrant shelter in Haiti said he was caught during an early-morning immigration raid on the house where he had been staying in a town near the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A 17-year-old said he had been shot in the leg by a Dominican immigration officer during a raid of his home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the Dominican authorities have a right to control their border, human rights activists and deportees say immigration agents are sweeping Black people off the streets, regardless of their residency status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Migrants have arrived in Haiti injured from beatings, and many others reported having been verbally harassed, said Laura d\u2019Elsa, the protection coordinator for the United Nations\u2019 International Organization for Migration, which helps run shelters along the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhy are all these massive abuses taking place?\u201d she asked. \u201cIt is extremely shocking to see, and the most extreme I have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Asked about accusations of mistreatment, the Dominican Republic\u2019s interior ministry, which oversees immigration, requested questions in writing and then did not respond to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/12\/05\/multimedia\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-03-wfjg\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-03-wfjg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"Three people peek through the slats of a white gate.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Haitian women looking for relatives in October through an opening in a gate at a migration center in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.Credit&#8230;Erika Santelices\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. \u00c1lvarez, the foreign minister, said that of the babies delivered in public hospitals, the share born to Haitian mothers had increased to 40 percent in October from nearly 24 percent in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About 147,000 Haitian children are enrolled in school in the Dominican Republic, costing about $430 million a year, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The country resents claims by critics that its immigration policy is \u201cracist and xenophobic,\u201d Mr. \u00c1lvarez said. \u201cAll the countries do it, and none are accused of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two countries\u2019 history is long and complex. After Haiti\u2019s slaves revolted and formed their own independent Black nation in 1804, they led the entire island for 22 years. The Dominican Republic\u2019s Independence Day marks its rupture not from Spain, the country that colonized it for nearly three centuries, but from Haiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dominican leaders have historically promoted anti-Haitian sentiment. In 1937, Dominican troops, acting on orders of the dictator Rafael Trujillo, massacred thousands of Haitians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haiti\u2019s foreign minister noted that the Dominican president chose to unveil the mass deportation plan on Oct. 2, the 87th anniversary of the massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2010, the Dominican Republic changed its Constitution to eliminate the right to birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. Three years later, the country\u2019s constitutional court ruled that the measure could be implemented retroactively \u2014 rendering stateless tens of thousands of people born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBy racial profiling, they can be picked up and can be expelled from their own country of birth,\u201d said Bridget Wooding, an immigration expert at a migration studies institute in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In October, shortly after the deportations began, Dominique Dupuy, Haiti\u2019s foreign minister at the time,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/France24_fr\/status\/1846893297278587146\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">told a French news station<\/a>&nbsp;that people were chosen \u201cby the simple fact that they had Black skin.\u201d Some of them were not even Haitian, she claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/12\/05\/multimedia\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-04-wfjg\/00Dominican-Republic-Haiti-04-wfjg-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"Two men walk with a large wall in the background.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A border wall is being built in Pedernales, Dominican Republic.Credit&#8230;Federico Parra\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms. Dupuy was forced out of her job a few weeks later by a transitional council running Haiti. Both she and the new foreign minister, Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste, declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017, the last time a government survey was taken, there were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/dominicanrepublic.unfpa.org\/sites\/default\/files\/pub-pdf\/ENI-2017%20FinalWeb.pdf\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">nearly 500,000 Haitians<\/a>&nbsp;in the Dominican Republic, and experts estimate the number may have doubled since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many experts stress that Haitians work in industries like construction and agriculture that buoy the Dominican economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But many Dominicans resent their presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf the international community is not going to assume its responsibility, Dominicans are going to defend what\u2019s ours, our space, our territory, our nation, our identity,\u201d said Pelegr\u00edn Castillo, vice president of the Fuerza Nacional Progresista party, which has led the nationalist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eduardo A. Gamarra, an international relations professor at Florida International University who served as an adviser to a former Dominican president, said the authorities there were right to feel that their international calls for help had gone unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAnything really that happens in Haiti has a direct consequence on the Dominican Republic,\u201d Mr. Gamarra said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that people really fully understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, the crush of deportations has overwhelmed nonprofit organizations at the border trying to help migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Support Group for Returnees and Refugees, a shelter in Haiti near the El\u00edas Pi\u00f1a border crossing, deported migrants swarm social workers, pleading for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jos\u00e9 Alberto de los Santos, 17, said migration agents picked him up last month while he was working at a tire shop in Hig\u00fcey, about 30 miles west of Punta Cana, a Dominican resort town on the eastern coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI told them I was Dominican,\u201d Mr. de los Santos said in perfect Spanish. \u201cThey asked me for my papers, and I told them I didn\u2019t have them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ms. Florvil, the pregnant woman, said the neighborhood north of the Haitian capital where she is from is now under gang control, so she has not returned. She makes what she can selling water near the El\u00edas Pi\u00f1a border crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf we had a president in our country, I don\u2019t think that Luis Abinader would mistreat us the way he is mistreating us today,\u201d she said, referring to the Dominican leader. \u201cHe does it because he knows that we don\u2019t have a president who speaks for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/frances-robles\">Frances Robles<\/a>\u00a0is a Times reporter covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has reported on the region for more than 25 years.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/frances-robles\">More about Frances Robles<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Hogla Enecia P\u00e9rez&nbsp;and&nbsp;Frances Robles Hogla Enecia P\u00e9rez visited the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and interviewed migrants and social service workers helping them. Turmoil in Haiti Relations between the neighboring countries on the island of Hispaniola have long been frosty. They are now complicated by up to 10,000 deportations a week. Listen to this article\u00a0\u00b7 9:22 min\u00a0Learn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15849,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848\/revisions\/15849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}