Haitian migrants share abuse stories as the Dominican Republic increase deportation

Using Associated PressFebruary 11 2025 1:06 AM (NPR)

Belladre, Haiti – a crowd of 500 came down from Dusty trucks recently in the morning and spilled over the tiny gap in the border gates separating Haiti from the Dominican Republic.

They were the first deported days, some are still dressed in work clothes, and others barefoot when they were lined up for food, water and medical care in the border city of Haiti Belladesya before switching the next step.

Under the capricious sun, migrants recalled that, according to them, he was abused by Dominican officials after President Luis Abinader ordered them to start deporting at least 10,000 immigrants a week under a new strict policy, widely criticized.

“They broke my door at 4 am,” Odein Saint -Fler said, who worked as a mason in the Dominican Republic for two decades. He slept next to his wife and 7-year-old son.

The number of expedited human rights violations, from unauthorized home raids to racial profiling to breast deportation, and minors grow when officials increase deportations to Haiti, which divides Spaniol island with the Dominican Republic.

Last year, more than a quarter of million people were deported, and more than 31,200 in January.

“The situation has reached a critical moment,” said Rudy Joseph, an activist who accused officials of disregarding the proper process during arrests. “Children remain abandoned in schools every day.”

“I will wait for you on the other side”

Recently, in the afternoon, dozens of sellers were lined up on both sides of men, women and children who were not accompanied by one file in Belladier after deportation, their feet are immersed in a turbid, smelling path that smelled of urine.

Men tried to sell them jeans, water, SIM cards and illegal trips back to the Dominican Republic: “Would you like to pass? I will wait for you on the other side,” they whispered in Creoles.

Despite the repression, many repeat the Dominican Republic by exposing a broken system.

On that day, noon was distinguished by Jimmy Mien, a 32-year-old floor installer, it was deported. He was arrested in the capital of Santo Domingo in 2024 and again in mid -January, when the authorities sat on a public bus and pointed to him.

“The Black Devil of the Haitian, move away,” he remembered, saying that they even asked for documents.

He left behind his wife and two children, between the ages of 3 and 12, and does not know when he would see them again.

He planned to go to the capital of Haiti, but like thousands of other people who refused Belladier, he would have to cross through the gang territory where fighters open fire on public transport.

“There is no food, there is nothing, only criminals,” he said about Haiti, where more than 5,600 people were recorded last year, most gangs that control 85% of the capital, Port-Oprins.

If Milien returned to the Dominican Republic for the third time, dozens of smugglers are waiting.

The poppy, the Haitian, who only gave his name to talk freely about smuggling, said he was sending migrants across the border up to six times a week.

He charges 3 dollars for a person, and then offers $ 8 to Dominican border guards: “If you pay them, they will allow you,” he said.

He lived in Santo Domingo for almost three years, installing drywall until it is deported. He then joined a prosperous smuggling and said he was not planning to return to the capital until repression was relieved.

“Here, everyone knows me,” he said. “They don’t bother me.”

Young and lonely on the border

Military units miss the road leading from a dusty border to the capital of Dominican. Bus onboard, glue your head into the windows of the cars and delay the suspected disconnected migrants, but many people jump out before skiping and moving down again on the road.

The influx of Haitian migrants and their attempts to enter again is that Vice-Admiral Luis Raphael Li Ballest, Dominican Director for Migration.

“The Dominican Republic … has taken over too much responsibility for the situation in Haiti,” he said. “We are ready to support, but it is important that Haiti’s leaders will inspire order in their country so that they look after their people.”

Dominican officials claim that Haitian immigrants have overloaded the country’s state services, over 80,000 students of new Haitians have been counted over the past four years. Health officials say that Haitian women are up to 70% of birth in the country, costing the government millions of dollars.

Ballester stated that he would deploy additional migration officials across the country to decide what he called a splash of undocumented immigrants, stating that they were a burden and a danger to his country.

While he denied the accusations of abuse, he acknowledged that officials were allowed to enter the “during the hot pursuit”, and these staff would be spilled “because our commitment to respect for human rights is undeniable.”

Ballester said the Dominican Republic does not deport minors, and officials now separate women and children from men during deportations.

But at the end of January, five teenagers without parents were deported. Among them was 15 -year -old Jovenson Morett, who said he was detained while working in the field.

He and four others interviewed Haitian officials in Belladier, who tried to track parents.

Further to the north, in the Haitian border city of Uanamine, a 10-year-old girl unaccompanied, was deported at the end of January,-said Geta Narayan, a representative of UNICEF on Haita.

“These children are one of the most vulnerable,” she said, noting that the gangs along the border on them are prey.

Last year, the Dominican Republic deported 1,099 unaccompanied children; According to UNICEF, 786 of them were combined with their families.

45-year-old Jossetta Jean feared for her 16-year-old son, who was born in the Dominican Republic when he was recently deported alone on Haiti.

Squeezing his photo, she said she rushed to the center of the Dominican detention center, where he was kept, but said that the government was not deporting minors. He was still deported.

Jean paid a smuggler to return his son to the Dominican Republic in a few days.

“The children who were born here have no idea where to go,” she said about those who are deported on Haiti, a country that her son has never attended.

A considerable number of those who are deported, like Jean’s son, were born in the Dominican Republic, but lacks birth certificates or other official documentation confirming their legal status, and activists accuse the government of permission to end or refuse to process their documents. The Dominican Republic does not automatically give citizenship to all who were born there.

As the mass deportations continue, Dominican employers in agriculture and the construction industry complain.

Ballester answer? To hire Dominican workers.

“Haiti will drowns”

At least one mobile phone was recorded when 25 -year -old Micelson Herman tried to evade Dominican authorities at the end of last year. He ran to the roof when the official caught him and pushed him away from him. The woman who recorded, screaming and began to cry, thinking that he was dead.

“Grace of God, I first fell on an electric wire,” said German in a video recorded by a non -profit organization.

With the injury of the leg and the children of his cousin, who was holding on him, General said that the authorities had left the scene.

Activists accused the official of attempted murder, but despite a wide protest, they say that abuse insists.

Last year, a group of Dominican men, outraged by the fact that, in their opinion, it is the treatment and arrests of their Haitian neighbors, throwing rocks, bottles and other objects in power. One man tried to disarm the migration official before the shots were released and all scattered.

As mass deportations continue, President Abinader has warned that Haiti situation is a danger to the region, and that a “uncontrolled wave of migration” could be “because he called for greater support for a non -supported mission on Haiti, fighting for the fight against gang .

“There is no Dominican decision of the Haitian crisis,” he said. “Haiti is buried, while an important part of the international community is observing passively from the shore.”