Not Everyone Is Welcome Here - The Labor and Immigration Conflict
Most recently, antihaitianismo has escalated and developed into a migratory problem. When the D.R. finally broke free from its colonial ties with Spain (who did not impose an independence debt on them), Dominicans were able to build infrastructure, create industries, and fund public works that made their people better off. The prosperity a country over incentivized many Haitians to migrate into the D.R. in desperate efforts to escape the poverty of their country.
A Haitian worker crosses the border fence separating the Dominican Republic town of Jimani from the Haitian town of Malpasse, August 26, 2015 (AP photo by Dieu Nalio Chery).
This migration was aggravated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, an earthquake from which the country has not yet recovered and thus, prompted even more to migrate to the D.R. in search of employment and a new life. As a result, the D.R. (similar to the U.S.) has professed their problem with “dirty” Haitians coming to their country to benefit from their resources, take their jobs, etc. This growing resentment towards Haitian migrants, combined with a history of antihaitianismo, led to even greater institutionalized racism against Haitians and decedents of Haitian immigrants in recent years.
Amnesty International notes how before 2010, the D.R. had a birthright citizenship policy similar to the one the United States currently has stating that anyone born in the country’s borders is Dominican (except the children of Haitian diplomats). But in 2010, the Dominican constitution was amended to reflect the decision that anyone "in transit” (i.e. anyone born to an undocumented person) could no longer claim Dominican citizenry, regardless if they were born on Dominican soil. In 2013, the Dominican leadership added that the new law would be applied retroactively, all the way back to 1929, to anyone of Haitian descent (Amnesty International, 2015). This means that if anyone in your family entered the D.R. as an undocumented immigrant on or after 1929, then all people who came after them in that family group who were (up until 2010) considered valid Dominican citizens were now revoked of that citizenship.
These new immigration and citizenship laws obviously targeted Dominicans of Haitian descent (an example of legalized institutional racism). The D.R. gave people affected by this law until August of 2015 leave the country, and thereafter established that those still in the country after that deadline of voluntary departure were subject to deportation. Under these new stipulations, the people now getting deported were born in the D.R. back when it was promised to them that they would be citizens because they were born on Dominican soil. Thus, most of the deportees have never been to Haiti or known any relatives there, since many families migrated to the D.R. generations ago.
Therefore, this amendment not only deported them to a country they have no ties to, but also resulted in them being “stateless” since they do not legally belong as citizens of either the D.R. or Haiti (Haiti does not accept them as citizens either).
