82,210

Not Available

Not Available

251,011

246,678

25,711

24,758

25,500

6.9%

6.9%

6.1%

231

231

247

11,427,557

11,300,000

10,800,000

10,528,000

738,667

603,794

567,648

415,600

6.46%

5.57%

3.9%

1,011

665

546

162

162

164

170

593

578

615

608

0.06

0.06

4,789

2,563

2,175

233

41

22

7.7

0

0

0

0

133,770

210,000

$ 6,163,000

$ 4,650,000,000

%

167

101 (High)

In the past three months, Dominican Republic authorities have significantly stepped up migration controls and forced removals of Haitians, including amongst them pregnant women arrested in hospitals, prompting international condemnation. The country, which has historically pursued a policy of mass deportations, removed more than 60,204 people to Haiti between 1 August and the end of October alone–and some 20,000 in a nine day period in November. Large numbers of Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, with many of them working within the country’s agricultural sector. While the country’s economy relies on this labour, authorities have long touted xenophobic narratives about the “Haitianisation” of the Dominican Republic. More recently, tensions have grown following the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and the deepening crisis in Haiti, with Dominican authorities claiming that intensified border controls and deportations are critical to national security. In recent months, authorities have stepped up migration controls and deportations, arresting Haitains–as well as those who look like Haitains. According to the US embassy in the country, those arrested are detained in “overcrowded detention centers, without the ability to challenge their detention and without access to food or toilets, sometimes for days, before being released or deported to Haiti.” In a particularly concerning development, civil society organisations report that authorities have also started conducting migration controls in hospitals, detaining pregnant women in need of medical care in order to deport them. This was quickly condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which highlighted that it violates the principle of non-refoulement; the right of women to health, particularly reproductive health, and disregards “their need for humanitarian protection from the context of institutional crisis, structural violence, and human rights violations that prevails in Haiti.” Thousands of children have also been deported, and according to various reports and testimonies, deportations are often so chaotic that children are separated from their parents during the process. This year alone, 1,800 unaccompanied children have been deported to Haiti, however it is unclear whether these children had been on their own in the Dominican Republic, whether they had been separated from family when they were arrested, or whether they were separated from parents during the detention and deportation procedure. The country’s latest treatment of non-nationals has prompted widespread criticism. In late November, a coalition of Dominican NGOs—including Proyecto Trato Digno, OBMICA, and CEDESO—released a statement harshly criticising the deportation campaign: “In recent months, the Dominican government has implemented an aggressive regime to persecute migrants, including hundreds of operations that violate deportation due process. This regime is characterized by a disproportionate use of force, mobilizing security and public order agencies that are not intended to treat administrative matters: the armed forces, national intelligence, and the national police. … We call on authorities to mend their immigration policy to comply with national norms that define due process in matters of detentions and deportations, respect for the rights and dignity of people, as stipulated in the Dominican Constitution.” Haiti has also condemned the country for subjecting Haitians to “inhumane, cruel and degrading conditions,” while William Charpantier, the coordinator of MENAMIRD, a national roundtable for migrants and refugees in the country, stated that “these aren’t deportations. It’s persecution based on race.” The authorities’ actions were also deplored by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, who called “on the Dominican Republic authorities to step up efforts to prevent xenophobia, discrimination and related forms of intolerance based on national, racial or ethnic origin, or immigration status” and called for an end to the deportations. Despite criticism, the situation non-nationals face in the Dominican Republic looks set to worsen. According to President Abinader, “The Dominican Republic will not only continue, but will increase deportations; therefore, these statements made by Volker Türk on behalf of the United Nations are unacceptable and irresponsible. We will continue the deportations and increase them.” To enable the growing rate of deportations, authorities approved Decree 668-22 on 11 November 2022, paving the way for the government to create a specialised police unit to prosecute and deport migrants living in state or private properties.

There has been a sharp uptick in anti-migrant policies and practices in the Dominican Republic in recent months, which have been fuelled in part by COVID-related restrictions and growing public backlash aimed at Haitians. Haiti and the Dominican Republic have a long history of political and racial tensions, often related to migration pressures. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), for example, noted during a review of the Dominican Republic the UN’s longstanding “concern about the racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance that particularly affect dark-skinned persons of African descent from the Dominican Republic or Haiti as well as the Haitian irregular migrant population.” The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing humanitarian and social strife in Haiti have severely exacerbated these tensions in the Dominican Republic. Thus, while countries across the Caribbean and Latin America moved to stop deportations after the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, the Dominican Republic did not. During the first half of March 2020, 2,059 Haitian nationals were detained and 1,703 deported. Recently, these deportations have appeared to increase. In October 2021, authorities deported 4,025 Haitians following raids led by police in Santa Cruz de Mao. In one notable recent case, on 11 November 2021, El Nacional reported that several pregnant Haitian women had been detained in hospitals across the capital and subsequently deported. A group of 45 women, including 28 who were pregnant, were deported on 11 November to Haiti through the border between Comendador in the Dominican Republic and Belladere in Haiti. The Mesa Nacional para Migraciones y Refugiados en República Dominicana, a network of local civil society organisations, denounced the move as “a practice of racial discrimination, xenophobia” and intolerance. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Felipe Gonzalez, also denounced the move, tweeting: “Muy preocupante información sobre migrantes haitianas embarazadas detenidas en hospitales de República Dominicana y luego deportadas. Los Estados deben garantizar acceso a la salud y derechos sexuales y reproductivos de todas las personas migrantes.” The hospital deportations occurred just as reports were emerging that the Dominican Republic was planning to limit access to public hospitals for undocumented migrants and would review the visa status of students from Haiti. The country’s Interior Minister justified the proposals arguing that the situation in Haiti “puts additional pressure on our health budget.” In February 2021, the president of the Dominican Republic announced plans to build a fence along its 380 kilometer border with Haiti to “put an end to the serious problems of illegal immigration, drug trafficking and movement of stolen vehicles.” By May 2021, 23 kilometers of the four meter-high wall had been constructed. The COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of the border with Haiti also had severe economic consequences for the country and local communities (see 8 December 2020 Dominican Republic update on this platform). According to data published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were 162 refugees and 625 asylum seekers in the country in 2020 and 162 refugees and 642 asylum seekers registered by mid-2021. UNHCR data also suggests that there has been a large increase in the number of Venezuelans present in the country. In 2019, there were 33,816 Venezuelans displaced abroad living in the Dominican Republic and in 2020, there were 114,050. In July 2021, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that the first group of 100,000 Venezuelan migrants without legal status in the country were given visas, allowing them to work, open bank accounts and join the social security system under the country’s Migration Normalisation Plan. The plan was created by the Dominican government with support of the IOM and aims to regularise the Venezuelan population. The first phase of the plan began in April 2021 and since then, 43,000 Venezuelan nationals have registered to extend their stay and on 1 July 2021, 21 Venezuelan nationals received their work visa. While the Dominican Republic has begun a national vaccination campaign against COVID-19, the country’s president, Luis Abindaer said that vaccine shots would not be given to anyone without residency papers. In addition, Response for Venezuelans reported in February 2021 that the country’s vaccination plan is not including refugees and migrants at this stage.

On 1 March 2020, the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the Dominican Republic. Between 15 and 19 March, the government adopted a series of emergency measures, including halting flights from Europe, China, South Korea, and Iran; suspending ferry arrivals; and closing border crossings with Haiti. As of December 2020, the country had registered 149,138 COVID-19 cases and 2,346 deaths. On 10 November, the IOM reported that it was distributing more than 12,000 food kits to migrant and Dominican families affected by the economic consequences of closing the border with Haiti. The closure of four border crossings in particular have had major impacts on local communities and the country as a whole. The Ministry of Economy, Planning, and Development reports that some 90 percent of trade with Haiti flows through those posts, which account for nearly 230,000 entries per year. The IOM reports that it is working with several civil society organisations in the country to distribute food in border provinces. According to the Casa de Luz Foundation, “people do not have access to food in sufficient quantities, and thanks to the aid that IOM has been providing these days, many people have received food at home. … Many of these families depended on the informal market trade. Now the market activities are almost nil, so many have had to migrate to work for private households in Santo Domingo.” According to UNHCR, there are 30,333 Venezuelans displaced abroad in the Dominican Republic along with 603 asylum seekers and 162 refugees. According to Response for Venezuelans, its partners assisted 37 Venezuelans with COVID-19, accompanying them to hospitals and purchasing their medicines. Response for Venezuelans also reported that 33 cases of legal assistance for persons who were evicted and lost their jobs without justification were managed remotely by the organisation. In its concluding observations in 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern regarding reports of arbitrary and indefinite detention of asylum seekers and refugees as well as at the lack of procedural safeguards in the country. In addition, the committee observed that a high number of Haitian nationals are deported and that pushbacks at the border are carried out in the absence of procedural safeguards and by inadequately trained immigration and border personnel. The committee recommended that the country take steps to “avoid the arbitrary and indefinite detention of migrants, asylum seekers and refugee claimants, ensure that they have access to a lawyer and information on their rights, including at the border, and provide for alternatives to detention for asylum seekers and refugee claimants, ensuring that detention is used only a last resort.” The country’s prisons have seen large outbreaks of COVID-19 since April; as of 1 July 2020, there were 917 cases in the country’s prisons, of which 346 were active at that time. During the pandemic, two riots took place, one in April at the Victoria prison in Santo Domingo and another in May at the Romana prison, leaving five prisoners and a police officer injured. Prisoners were requesting COVID-19 testing after other prisoners tested positive at the facilities and after four prisoners died at the Victoria prison. The Victoria prison has 9,000 prisoners for 1,500 places. The GDP has been unable to obtain details on COVID-19 related measures taken to safeguard people in immigration custody.

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