Dominican Republic Temporarily Halts Deportation of Haitians

International pressure leads officials to pause their plans to expel both
Haitian immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

By Teresa Welsh
July 10, 2015 | 5:26 p.m. EDT

International backlash appears to have temporarily halted a plan by the Dominican Republic to expel Haitian immigrants from the country, but human rights advocates say it is essential that attention remain on the issue in order reduce the likelihood deportations will take place. The deportation plan is tied to long-held tensions over race and immigration between the two nations that share a single Caribbean island.

"This level of attention is obviously not going to be indefinite," says Celso Perez, a fellow at Human Rights Watch. "Our first concern is what happens when people are no longer paying the same kind of attention to the issue."

The Dominican government wants to deport both Haitian migrants who traveled to the neighboring country to work, as well as Dominicans of Haitian descent who were born in and have been in the country for years but don't have permanent legal residential status – a hot-button issue in other countries, including the United States. There are an estimated 450,000 Haitian migrants and tens of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic, but a constitutional change and court rulings have endangered their status.

Until 2010, most people born in the Dominican Republic were guaranteed citizenship, much like the birthright laws in the U.S. But a 2013 court case removed that provision from the Dominican constitution, and also applied retroactively to anyone born there after 1929 – a move that is in violation of international laws.

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