Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / The Dominican Republic has significantly ramped up deportations with over 213,000 people

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The Dominican Republic has significantly ramped up deportations with over 213,000 people · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The uns as one point four million Haitians, more than
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  Speaker 1: ten percent of the country, have fled their homes because
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  Speaker 1: of violence and instability. Many have crossed the border to
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  Speaker 1: neighboring Dominican Republic, but there they live in fear and limbeau.
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  Speaker 1: Two hundred thousand have even been deported back to Haiti.
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  Speaker 1: As part of our ongoing series on border security around
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  Speaker 1: the World, fellows from British Columbia University's Global Reporting Program
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  Speaker 1: visited the island and have this report. As told by
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  Speaker 1: our Ali Rogan.
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  Speaker 2: These cattle cars have been modified to hold dozens of
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  Speaker 2: migrants at a time. The Dominican Republic has ordered up
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  Speaker 2: trucks like this to roam the streets of towns and
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  Speaker 2: the countryside, filling up every day with Haitian migrants. In
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  Speaker 2: one of them, we met a young man named Colaib
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  Speaker 2: who told us he came to the Dominican Republic to
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  Speaker 2: work construction.
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  Speaker 3: It's wrong, it's wrong. All this time that we've been here,
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  Speaker 3: we've been going through misery, working for nothing, working for
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  Speaker 3: a house to live in. How is it that I'm
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  Speaker 3: in jail without an arrest warrant, without having done anything.
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  Speaker 2: This sweep in the Dominican Republic is part of a
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  Speaker 2: response to escalating gang violence and economic instability across the
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  Speaker 2: border in Haiti, which has escalated steadily since the assassination
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  Speaker 2: of Haiti's president in twenty twenty one. Last September, at
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  Speaker 2: a UN address, Dominican President Luis Abinadea pledged that his
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  Speaker 2: country would not fall victim to the pressures from the
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  Speaker 2: crisis in Haiti.
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  Speaker 4: The instability in our neighboring country has put significant pressure
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  Speaker 4: on our own security.
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  Speaker 2: President Abinadea fortified and expanded a border law and pledged
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  Speaker 2: to round up ten thousand Haitians every week to secure
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  Speaker 2: his country from undocumented migrants. The border town of Dahabon
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  Speaker 2: has been the epicenter of the deportation efforts. The town's
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  Speaker 2: market is one of the only places Haitians are allowed
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  Speaker 2: to enter legally to buy and sell products, but they
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  Speaker 2: must leave the same day over this heavily monitored bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Armed Dominican border police stand guard, and there have been
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  Speaker 2: several incidents of violence against Haitians at this market.
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  Speaker 5: It is a security issue in Haiti. There are gang members,
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  Speaker 5: there are people who maintain anarchy in that country.
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  Speaker 2: Farmer Santiago Rivaron is the mayor of Dahabon and has
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  Speaker 2: been aggressive in his stance against undocumented Haitians, even taking
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  Speaker 2: to the streets to violently round up sleeping migrants on
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  Speaker 2: his own. But while the volume of deportations back to
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  Speaker 2: Haiti may have skyrocketed, the border remains porous. Many migrants
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  Speaker 2: are known to cross back into the Dominican Republic across
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  Speaker 2: this river, and it's an open secret that a bribe
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  Speaker 2: can secure passage.
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  Speaker 4: It's all about money. If you have the money, they
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  Speaker 4: let you go. If you don't have money, you stay.
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  Speaker 4: To go back. You pay a little something, You pay
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  Speaker 4: an immigration chief. The chief always puts someone else to
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  Speaker 4: do that for him.
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  Speaker 5: It has become a big business, especially for some military.
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  Speaker 5: I cannot say that all the military are corrupted, but
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  Speaker 5: there are many corrupt military who received bribes so that
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  Speaker 5: the border can be crossed.
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  Speaker 2: The day after the Global Reporting Program team met that
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  Speaker 2: young Haitian construction worker Colab in the migration truck, they
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  Speaker 2: went to his home to speak with his family, only
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  Speaker 2: to find Kalab himself back at home with his wife
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  Speaker 2: and baby, whose identities he asked us to conceal. How
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  Speaker 2: did you get back from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I always passed through a waterway or go
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  Speaker 3: through the end of the wall where the wall does
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  Speaker 3: not reach across through the woods. If I could survive
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  Speaker 3: in Haiti, I would stay because here we are not living.
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  Speaker 3: Because we are not living, we are surviving. There is
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  Speaker 3: no life for Haitian.
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  Speaker 2: He says he's lost track of how many times he
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  Speaker 2: has been captured, deported and returned.
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  Speaker 6: The army, the police, anybody in a uniform, the Watchfund
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  Speaker 6: down the road is beginning to be involved in ways
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  Speaker 6: which lead to extortion, corruption and creating a chaos.
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  Speaker 2: Human rights activists like Bridget Wooding have condemned Dominican treatment
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  Speaker 2: of Haitians. Amnesty International calls it de facto racist migration
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  Speaker 2: policies in violation of the country's international human rights obligations.
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  Speaker 6: It's this particular anti blact, this particularly anti Haitian sentiment
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  Speaker 6: that the authorities have attempted to whip up. There's not
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  Speaker 6: a rational way in which migration is being addressed, and
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  Speaker 6: on the contrary, it's being used as a scapegoat for
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  Speaker 6: a lot of ills.
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  Speaker 5: We said that we are racists. That is not true
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  Speaker 5: because the majority of Dominicans have black skin, so how
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  Speaker 5: can there be racism. The issue that we have with
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  Speaker 5: our neighbors is their lack of culture. We would like
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  Speaker 5: them to learn from us. They should do the same
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  Speaker 5: thing that media.
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  Speaker 2: But even many educated professional Haitians with legal right to
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  Speaker 2: study or work in the Dominican report public, have reported
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  Speaker 2: being arbitrarily detained. Louis jerry Wood, at Haitian studying to
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  Speaker 2: be a pilot in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo, was
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  Speaker 2: grabbed right off the street.
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  Speaker 7: I was going to the market to buy something and
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  Speaker 7: I surprise I in contact with this truck. One of
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  Speaker 7: them hit me, telling me to shuder. So I showed
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  Speaker 7: him about the visa that showed him the passport and
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  Speaker 7: they told me that doesn't matter and they took me
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  Speaker 7: in Costadian put me in this struck. But I really
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  Speaker 7: feel that I was excuminated, like because I was black,
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  Speaker 7: and worse because I was Aitian.
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  Speaker 2: Louis was taken to this former recreational center converted into
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  Speaker 2: a detention facility to meet the demands of the country's
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  Speaker 2: migrant sweeps. Outside the center, families waited for loved ones
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  Speaker 2: who had been detained.
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  Speaker 8: I spent like one night, one day without eating fans,
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  Speaker 8: without drinking water. Was really traumatious because it was the
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  Speaker 8: first time for me to have been treated this way.
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  Speaker 8: Because even in eighty there was a stitution of violence.
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  Speaker 8: I didn't really see this stuff.
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  Speaker 2: To date, Louis has been picked up four times and
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  Speaker 2: he lives in constant fear of being detained again. And
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  Speaker 2: he's one of the most connected Haitian migrants in the country,
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  Speaker 2: having been sponsored by Alexis Victoria Yeb, a prominent senator
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  Speaker 2: in President Abinador's ruling party.
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  Speaker 9: I learned about Louis's desire to become a pilot. It
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  Speaker 9: captivated me, his story, his dedication, his desire to achieve
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  Speaker 9: his dream. I got him a work permit, a study permit,
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  Speaker 9: and he is here legally with all the documents.
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  Speaker 2: And while Senator Yeb says the Dominican Republic is reliant
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  Speaker 2: on cheap Haitian labor, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing, there's
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  Speaker 2: a larger national security concern.
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  Speaker 9: We need Haitian labor. If they are regulated, if they
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  Speaker 9: have identification, we get them the work residents here. The
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  Speaker 9: thing is that Haiti is completely devastated where they don't
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  Speaker 9: have controls over their citizens. Haiti is controlled by a
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  Speaker 9: terrorist gang, so we have to control our country.
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  Speaker 3: This is my dream. It's my dream that one day
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  Speaker 3: I can see Haiti working across the border to return
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  Speaker 3: to our country. I have a child who's only two
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  Speaker 3: months old. I'd like to see his future. I'd like
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  Speaker 3: to see him grow up. I would not like to
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  Speaker 3: pass the misery that I am going through.
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  Speaker 2: Now for the PBS News Hour, I'm Ali Rogan.