Guest Post by Bridget Wooding (OBMICA)
On 2 October, the Dominican Republic’s Migration Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior and Police announced an upscaled operation “to deport 10,000 Haitians each week.” This decision had been taken by the Defence and National Security Council, headed up by President Luis Abinader. According to the Council’s directive, the stated objective is to “reduce the perceived excess of migrant population in Dominican communities and will be carried out with strict protocols to ensure the respect of human rights and the dignity of the repatriates.”
The Dominican Republic’s new wave of mass deportations—which follows a series of others in recent years (see the Global Detention Project’s last update in December 2023)—is being carried out indiscriminately, in violation of people’s rights and dignity and in the face of an ongoing humanitarian crisis in neighbouring Haiti. However, the causes of undocumented migration are not being addressed; instead, hate speech and xenophobic practices are being fostered that perpetuate historical narratives of racism and anti-Haitianism. By contrast, research on the subject indicates that it is necessary to dismantle the corrupt system that sustains human trafficking and regularise migration to the Dominican Republic in compliance with both Dominican and international law.
To undertake these mass deportations, Dominican security agencies are arbitrarily detaining large numbers of people based on skin colour, reflecting a discriminatory attitude to migration control, which has historic roots and continues to grow and be ever more visible. These measures are not just affecting undocumented immigrants, but also people residing legally, like Dominicans of Haitian ancestry. These developments are being reported in innumerable press reports and testimonies, including in press releases from Catholic Church officials denouncing ill-treatment of vulnerable people.
The conditions in which these operations and detentions take place are a far cry from the respect for human rights which the Dominican government had promised. This is evidenced in the violent way in which the raids are carried out at all hours of the day and night, in people’s homes, workplaces, or where they may be receiving public services in the vicinity of schools and hospitals. The conditions in which people are transported and the presence of boys, girls, adolescents, and pregnant women in barred trucks bear witness to inhumane treatment, considering not least that these categories of persons are explicitly exempt from detention or deportation according to the Dominican Migration Law of 2004 and its subsequent rules of procedure of 2011. These practices have been aggravated since late 2021 when new restrictions on access to public health for migrant women were inaugurated. The widespread and ubiquitous nature of the operations means that migrants have to restrict their movements or put their life in danger in order to avoid being arbitrarily detained.
By 18 November, IOM had documented nearly 40,000 deportations, with around 27,000 in October alone. This constitutes the highest monthly number of returns since the end of 2022, when the Dominican Republic began to increase its deportation of Haitian migrants. All deportations were documented at the four official land border crossings, with around 50 percent (nearly 20,000) at Belladere, Centre department; 30 percent (12,500) at Ouanaminthe, Nord-Est department; 12 percent (4,700) at Anse-à-Pitres, Sud-Est department; and 8 percent (3,000) at Malpasse, Ouest department (IOM accessed 05/11/2024). Deportees and returnees, including pregnant women and unaccompanied and separated children (UASC), generally arrive with significant pre-existing humanitarian needs. Many are deported without their belongings and experience varied protection threats, including harassment, violence, extortion, and the denial of access to basic services while living in the Dominican Republic and during the deportation process.
The detention and deportation process poses significant health risks, as authorities often crowd deportees and returnees into overheated vehicles and detention facilities and regularly deny them access to medical assistance, WASH, and adequate food. Amnesty International has verified five videos released between July 2023 and July 2024 showing Dominican detention centres with no beds or chairs and detainees sleeping in heaps on the floor. There is a high risk of infectious disease transmission in these overcrowded facilities. Children and pregnant and postpartum women are among those arrested and detained in an unsafe manner. There have been recent reports of authorities arresting and deporting Haitian women seeking antenatal and postnatal care in the Dominican Republic, likely leaving them with unaddressed reproductive health needs in detention facilities. It is unclear whether there is consistent gender segregation in detention facilities, a lack of which increases the risk of gender-based violence. Moreover, a study underway by OBMICA has already revealed the considerable strain on migrant women with very young children when their male partners and main breadwinners are deported, and they remain as sole mainstay for the family left behind in the Dominican Republic.
Civil society actors at home and abroad, international organisations, and local defenders of human rights have all asked the Dominican government to reconsider their migration policy, especially as regards collective deportations without due process, not least while the enduring crisis in Haiti mitigates the possibility of the Haitian authorities responding adequately to a mass influx of repatriates.
Bridget Wooding is the director of the Centro para la Observacion Migratoria y el Desarrollo Social en el Caribe (OBMICA), based in the Dominican Republic (https://obmica.org)
