Turned Out of the Dominican Republic : Nowhere Left to Turn

"We've called it as such [ethnic cleansing, reminiscent of the denationalization of Jews in Nazi Germany] because there are definitely linkages. You don't want to look a few years back and say, This is what was happening and I didn't call it'."
Cassandra Theano, legal officer, Open Society Foundations, New York

"One thing that is not mentioned as often is that early in the 20th Century (1915 to 1934 for Haiti, and 1916 to 1924 for the D.R.), the entire island was occupied by the United States. Then again, in the D.R., Trujillo -- who not only organized a massacre, but wiped out several generations of Dominican families -- was trained during the occupation by U.S. marines and put in power when they pulled out. Same with the Haitian army that terrorized Haitians for generations. It is not a matter of blame but a matter of historical record."
Edwidge Danticat, Haitian-American writer

"The root cause is discrimination; it's really a long-standing discrimination, against those of Haitian descent."
"The Dominican Republic has not been able to establish a strong policy to combat it."
Marselha Goncalves Margerin, advocacy director for the Americas, Amnesty International

Haitian Jaquenol Martinez shows a card that proves that he has worked in the Dominican sugar cane fields since 1963, while trying to apply for a temporary resident permit, in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Photograph: Ezequiel Abiu Lopez/AP

The Island of Hispaniola is split between two countries; one side holds Haiti, the other is the abode of the Dominican Republic. Although the Dominican Republic is not wealthy, it is relatively stable and the government ensures responsible infrastructure is in place, whereas Haiti is forever in turmoil, beset by the fallout of one unstable government after another, corrupt, ineffective, poverty-ridden. Little wonder Haitians would prefer to be domiciled in the Dominican Republic where employment is possible and life more sanely predictable.

It will take Haiti a long enough time to recover from the catastrophic 2010 earthquake, despite the response from international humanitarian teams and the global community to aid the country bury its dead and rebuild its destroyed infrastructure. As though the plight of the homeless and the fear that enveloped the nation with the aftershocks and the violence that ensued when Haitians preyed on one another wasn't enough of a burden, a cholera epidemic ensued when UN workers from Nepal infected a local water reservoir.

Little wonder that Haitians would prefer to migrate to the other half of the island. Trouble is that Dominicans don't want them there. A slaughter that took place in 1937 when the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo attacked Haitians and dark-skinned Dominicans to rid the D.R. of their presence represented an impressive level of rancid racial bigotry leading to a bloodbath of epic proportions.

"The massacre cemented Haitians into a longer-term subversive outsider incompatible with what it means to be Dominicans", Border of Lights, a group commemorating the 75th anniversary of the massacre in 2012, stated. During the era of the slave trade when Africans were abducted from their Continent and brought to Europe and North America to work as slaves, the Island of Hispaniola was colonized by the Spanish, then the French, and both engaged in the Transatlantic slave trade.

In the early 20th Century the United States picked up where the French had left off. And to the present day, slave labour still exists in Haiti with unpaid child labour. Relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic have always been fractious; there was a time when Haiti invaded the Dominican Republic intent on unification, failing to endear themselves to the Dominicans. More latterly, Haitians were used as field labourers in the D.R., and many continued to live there for generations.

The head of the Dominican Republic's immigration agency, Army General Ruben Paulino has stated that his agency is set to begin patrolling neighbourhoods with large numbers of migrants, according to the Associated Press. "If they aren't registered, they will be repatriated", said General Paulino. As far as the government of the D.R. is concerned, the situation calls for a "cleansing" of the country's immigrants.

Alejandro Pierre, centre, attends a street procession in Santo Domingo during Holy Week. The aspiring bartender was born in the Dominican Republic, as was his mother; his father was born in Haiti. Photograph: Alessandro Vecchi

The Dominican government is expecting to round up Haitians; in fact anyone who is black and appears Haitian, to ship them to the border, expelling them from the Dominican Republic, irrespective of how long they have lived as Dominicans, or whether they are in fact Haitians, but are actually black Dominicans; they are all unwanted.

Dominican residents of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic are not recognized as Dominicans, lumped instead along with a second group comprised of Haitian migrants who worked in the sugar cane fields. In 2013, the constitutional court ruled that people born in the Dominican Republic would no longer be automatically considered citizens. And this rule was retroactively applied to anyone born after 1929; back-dating a total elimination process.

Tens of thousands of Dominican-born people of Haitian descent are stateless and at risk of being deported. Photograph: AP

Haitians and people of Haitian descent are directly and deliberately targeted, reaching back generations to wrest all human rights from them, denying them residency or citizenship. Haitian sounding names will be targets; Haitians migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent forced to prove they are citizens with the deadline for obtaining necessary documents to prove citizenship having lapsed back in February.

Similarly the deadline to "regularize" status also expires this week for migrants, leaving thousands waiting in long lines anxious to submit applications for legal residency, while the midnight deadline came and went leaving them unable to avoid deportation. Many of those waiting for days before the deadline desperately clutching documents to prove their legal status hoped to be allowed to stay in a country that represents the only home they have ever known.