The Impact of the Resumption of Deportations

Deportations of immigrants in irregular status officially resumed on September 21, 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to confront it. It should be recalled that deportations had been suspended as part of a set of protective measures against COVID-19, including the closure of the land border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Today, however, with the continuation of the state of emergency and curfew, mandatory masks, social distancing, and the land border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti still closed, the authorities decided to resume deportations.

It is worth asking why they took such a decision despite the risk of coronavirus contagion for deported people and the agents carrying out the deportations. The Dominican-Haitian Encounter Network Jacques Viau expressed its concern in a press note urging the authorities to extend the suspension of deportations because the conditions for resuming them were not in place. The media reported that the Director General of Migration, Enrique Garcia, commented that they were resuming them because many more irregular Haitians had been seen on the streets.

But from a legal standpoint, the volume of Haitian immigrants is not material; what matters is peoples migration status. If they have regular status, they have the right to remain in the Dominican Republic. No survey has been conducted to determine how many have irregular status, but what has been observed, according to border monitors, is that Haitian immigrants with National Plan for the Regularization of Foreigners documents were deported through the Jimani border before deportations were officially resumed. In this context, we understand that future deportations must comply with Dominican laws, as President Abinader promised.

Who should not be affected

This matter is very important because all those who would not have had expired documents if not for the following reasons are now exposed to deportation:

• They have not been able to renew their documents because of measures imposed by COVID-19. They continue to face many barriers, limitations, and difficulties in managing their papers.
• There are no conditions for obtaining the supporting documents they need from Haitian authorities.
• They still have no response from Dominican authorities to their request to obtain or renew those documents.

Economic issues

In addition to the impact on immigrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent, one cannot ignore the impact on Dominicans and the Dominican economy. Eliseo Cristopher, president of the Dominican Confederation of Micro, Small and Medium Construction Enterprises, has declared that the Dominican construction sector needs Haitian labor. But how is that possible when, according to border monitors, Dominican authorities are already deporting immigrants, with or without documents, without due process, who come to the Dominican Republic to respond to this need? This does not even take into account the situation of border residents who continue without the border pass and are exposed to returns and deportations, while the 2004 Migration Law envisages protecting them from these migration interdictions. In short, in the current sanitary risk situation, taking into account the evident difficulties in renewing migration documents, the need to begin operationalizing the border card, and the vital importance of Haitian labor for the Dominican economy, the resumption of deportations appears premature.