Dominican apartheid: Made in the USA

Dorian Bon argues that the Dominican Republic's plan to deport thousands of Haitian-descendant workers is rooted in a century of exploitation by U.S.-backed regimes.

AN OMINOUS deadline passed in the Dominican Republican on June 17, leaving hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.

The policy, resulting from a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling and commonly known as la sentencia," stipulates that Haitian-descendant Dominicans lacking documentation of their citizenship or immigration status are to be treated like first-generation Haitian migrants, subjected to arrest and deportation across the eastern border to Haiti.

Without precise census data, it is difficult to know exactly how many people of Haitian descent live and work in the Dominican Republic (DR). Minority Rights Group International places the figure anywhere between 700,000 and 1 million, of which 250,000 were born and raised in the Dominican Republic.

The vast majority are undocumented workers who came to find employment on sugar plantations, in household labor or in construction jobs, often encouraged by Dominican companies and the Dominican military.

Read more: http://socialistworker.org/2015/06/23/dominican-apartheid-made-in-the-usa