Dominican Republic Launches Massive Deportation of Haitian Residents

NCHR Expresses Grave Concern

February 12, 1997 -- The Dominican Republic has launched a new, sweeping program to detain and deport Haitian immigrants residing "illegally" in the country, a program that has already led to the repatriation of nearly 15,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent and could reach levels not seen since then-President Balaguer expelled 30,000 to 50,000 Haitians (and Dominicans of Haitian descent) across the border in 1991. The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) has expressed grave concern about the arbitrary and abusive nature of the deportation process, its potentially destabilizing effect on Haiti, and the abysmal failure of both the Haitian and Dominican governments to seriously pursue longer-range solutions to this long-standing migration problem.

"The issue is not whether the Dominican government has the right to deport individuals residing in the country illegally," said Patrick Gavigan, director of NCHR's Refugee and Migration Program, who spent the first week in February in the Dominican Republic investigating the repatriations. "The government clearly has that right. The issues are more complicated and have to do with the arbitrary and abusive way in which the repatriations are carried out and the refusal of the Dominican government to officially legalize the large numbers of Haitians who have the right to reside here. These include the second- and third- generation children of Haitian immigrants who were born in the country and are thus entitled to nationality under the Dominican constitution. These individuals are Dominican, not Haitian, citizens. A second group includes Haitian cane cutters and their families brought into the country legally since the 1950s who never have been given a permanent resident visa or any other immigration documentation. These two groups make up a large part of the Haitian population in the Dominican Republic."

The deportations began in early January, apparently in response to several weeks of political controversy in the Dominican Republic over the government's plan to recruit Haitian cane cutters for the 1996-97 cane harvest. The use of Haitian manual labor in the sugar cane industry is a sensitive issue as a result of intense international criticism of the horrendous slave-like conditions under which cane cutters work generated by International Labor Organization and NCHR reports in 1989-91. In addition, political sectors in the Dominican Republic have historically used the presence of an estimated 500,000 Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent in the country for ideological purposes, asserting that Dominican culture and political independence are threatened by a "pacific invasion" of poor Haitian immigrants.

The Fernández government's suggestion in December 1996 that it might need to recruit several thousand cane cutters from Haiti for the current harvest unleashed a torrent of criticism from across the political spectrum, criticism often strongly nationalistic, anti-Haitian and racist in tone. President Fernández reacted to the attacks by ordering the sweeping deportation operation. The government claims that its repatriation program is the result of an ever-growing influx of illegal Haitians fleeing poverty in Haiti and insists that it will continue to carry out the organized repatriations as long as illegal immigrants remain in the country. The army has continuously conducted roundups throughout the country since the beginning of the year, sending a steady stream of truckloads of Haitians to the border.

The deportations caused widespread outrage in Haiti and strong protests from the Haitian government. However, a hastily-arranged meeting at the border between the foreign ministers of the two countries on February 3 only produced a tepid agreement in which Haiti agreed to attempt to control the outflow of its nationals while the Dominican government promised greater coordination with Haiti on the repatriations. The Dominican chancellor pointedly insisted that the deportations would continue.

The deportation policy is managed and carried out by the Dominican army, which conducts unannounced sweeps of city neighborhoods and residential areas where Haitians and Dominican-Haitians are concentrated. "Haitian-looking" individuals are detained, placed on a bus, and then driven to a detention facility or directly to the border for deportation to Haiti. Those arrested are not permitted to collect belongings or notify family members; valid Dominican identification cards are usually ignored or destroyed by the soldiers. Families are split, with numerous cases of children separated from parents. Few, if any, civilian immigration officials are available to review the papers of individuals who claim legal residence in the country.

Tensions created by the presence of Haitians in the Dominican Republic have a long history. They reach back to the early 19th Century when Haiti controlled both sides of the island of Hispañola. They include the massacre of 10,000 to 30,000 Haitians by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1937 and Trujillo's subsequent effort to institutionalize a Haitian "threat" to Dominican identity. In more recent times, the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Azucar, or CEA) has been heavily criticized by international human rights and labor organizations for the horrendous slave-like conditions under which Haitian cane cutters have worked and lived in the sugar cane fields. (NCHR has issued four reports on the sugar cane industry since 1989, including a comprehensive update on the industry in its May 1996 publication, Beyond the Bateyes: Haitian Populations in the Dominican Republic.) The conflict over the contracting of additional Haitian workers this year overshadowed efforts by the CEA to improve wages and working conditions as well as address the frightful housing, sanitation and food availability problems in the bateyes, the state-owned slums where most cane cutters live.

The longer-run threat posed by the deportations is to stability in Haiti and political and economic development in both countries. "Haiti does not have the resources to absorb large numbers of individuals deported from the Dominican Republic," notes Gavigan, "and deportations of this magnitude can quickly destabilize the government. The last massive repatriation effort -- in 1991 -- contributed to the tension and unrest that characterized the weeks leading up to the military coup against then-President Aristide. If the Dominican government is serious about continuing the deportations, they seem able to round up and deport to Haiti at least 10,000 persons per month. By the end of March, that would mean 30,000 new unemployed, homeless individuals, a recipe for chaos."

"The greatest outrage," concludes Gavigan, "is the refusal of both governments to face up to the difficult political decisions that each side must make to end this destabilizing cycle. If additional resources and technical assistance are necessary -- and they are -- both governments should jointly seek international assistance. Current aid and investment programs in Haiti should be refocused on migration-related structural issues. It is simply irresponsible to say that only economic growth in Haiti will take care of this problem -- that prospect is decades away. Reasonable steps should be taken now by both states working together on a painful and difficult, but mutual problem that threatens each state equally."