Haiti Blasts Dominican Republic’s Mass Deportations, Tells OAS It’s ‘Discriminatory’

The Dominican Republic is carrying out “a discriminatory campaign” against Haitians based on their nationality and the color of their skin, Haiti’s acting representative to the Organization of American States charged Tuesday.

That campaign, which the Dominican government said focuses on expelling up to 10,000 Haitians a week, risks further aggravating the humanitarian crisis in Haiti and fueling instability in the region, Ambassador Gandy Thomas warned.

“These discriminatory policies create enormous pressure on Haiti right when we are facing economic stability, general security issues and political challenges,” Thomas said, describing the move as “a strategy of ethnic cleansing.” “Massive deportation will worsen the fragility of our infrastructure while the deportees will arrive with no support, no resource and no ties to the community.”

Haiti’s condemnation of the Dominican Republic and criticism of the way in which the country, which shares the island of Hispaniola, is carrying out the forced deportations of Haitians in its territory came as the Dominican Republic announced it had repatriated or deported nearly 11,000 Haitians in a week.

As a result of its new strategy, Haiti Foreign Minister Dominique Dupuy had requested an emergency meeting at the OAS. She condemned the deportations, saying the brutal scenes of Haitians being rounded up is “dehumanizing” and “an affront to human dignity.”

“Haiti will not stand by as Dominican authorities launch a brutal and discriminatory operation against our people because of the color of their skin,” Dupuy told the Miami Herald shortly before the start of the meeting. “We will never accept these violations of our dignity, and the world cannot allow this manhunt to continue. With unwavering resolve, we will mobilize every national and international avenue and denounce these blatant human rights abuses.”

The special session, later condemned by the Dominican Republic’s representative as not being the forum to address an issue between the two countries, is part of an effort by Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille to draw attention to the mass deportations and garner support from Haiti’s partners and the international community. In the last 24 hours, he has had Dupuy reach out to various international organizations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and oversee meetings in Port-au-Prince to respond to the surge in arrivals at the border.

OAS representatives from Canada, the U.S. and Colombia called on the Dominican Republic to respect Haitians’ human rights. The country has a sovereign right to manage migration and enforce its laws, they said, but migrants’ human rights must be respected during deportations.

“We remain concerned about the treatment of Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, particularly in light of the reported desire to surge deportations and the longstanding issues of discrimination and statelessness that many Haitian nationals and Dominicans of Haitian descent face,” Frank Mora, the U.S ambassador to the OAS, said. “We have called consistently for migration nationality laws to be implemented in a manner that fully respects human rights and ensures due process in accordance with both national and international legal obligations.”

Acknowledging the long-standing tensions between the two neighbors over their porous border and shared water resources, Mora said the U.S. believes that migration management should be part of the subjects broached in a dialogue between the two governments.

This is not the first time the Dominican Republic has ramped up deportations of Haitians. But it comes amid souring tensions between the two and as Haiti continues to see an escalation in gang violence that has displaced more than 700,000 people and fueled hunger among 5.4 million.

It also comes as countries of the region find themselves increasingly trying to tackle the migration question. The entire region is facing a migration crisis, Panama’s representative, Ana Irene Delgado, said.

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Delgado said the OAS should do more to support countries like hers and the Dominican Republic that are being inundated with fleeing migrants, “as well as those that are seeing massive, massive exodus of their of their citizens.”

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