In the Dominican “little Haiti”, concern after the president’s re-election

Johan Pérez takes care of cars parked on the street “little Haiti”, a commercial sector Santo Domingo. With a Dominican mother and Haitian father, she worries that the feeling “anti-Haitian” worsens in this country during the president’s second term, Luis Abinader, re-elected on Sunday.

Many Haitians live in overcrowded conditions and work in informal jobs in this chaotic sector of the center of the Dominican capital. Some buildings have cardboard roofs, facing warehouses with peeling walls.

It sells everything from sugar cane to used appliances, including clothing and vegetables.

The majority of Haitian vendors prefer to remain silent, and thus avoid their slightly French accent giving them away to the authorities, who raid the place daily to capture those who reside irregularly and deport them.

“Things are a little tougher,” Pérez, 32, tells AFP as he signals a vehicle to park in Little Haiti, a popular name that does not exist in the official nomenclature. “The guy is stronger now,” he says in reference to the president’s victory in the first round of Sunday’s elections.

Abinader, 56, swept away with an advantage of nearly 30 points over the second. His victory is a vindication of his tough policy against migration from the impoverished neighboring country, devastated by a chronic crisis that is now worsening with the violence imposed by gangs.

Pérez remembers how, for example, the police detained several of his friends a few days ago.

Just 10 meters from the corner where they watch the cars, a group was pushed out of a yellow house by the immigration police.

“They didn’t have papers”go on. “And they threw them headlong.” on a bus for detained migrants. Deportations increased from 122,000 in 2022 to 250,000 in 2023, according to official data. Experts say that the main characteristic to stop is skin color.

An “acid” policy

Since coming to power in 2020, the president has imposed a firm policy against Haitian migration: in addition to raids and expulsions, he reinforced the presence of the armed force on the border and built a 164 km wall between the two countries. which he promised to extend in his second term.

But many Haitians with papers in order run the risk of falling into illegality, amid bureaucratic obstacles to renew visas and residence permits, which are also very expensive for these people who mostly live in poverty.

It happens to Niclas Legrand, 60 years old, in Santo Domingo since 1987. His residence card expired in 2022 and since then he only has a small piece of evidence indicating that his process is in progress.

“God willing, Haiti will be fixed and I will return,” assures Legrand, in his sale of handkerchiefs. “Although I am calm here”, repairs the merchant.

In theory, his case does not place him at risk of deportation, but the specialized NGO Sociocultural Movement for Haitian Workers (Mosctha) assures that it has received complaints from people who were expelled even though they had their document in process.

“The current Government has been the most acidic Government on the immigration issue,” laments Joseph Cherubin, president of Mosctha, who sees “a posibility” that the harshness of the authorities decreases.

“What the president was doing was because of the electoral situation, because the Haitian issue is important when there are elections, it has been historically,” precise.

The tense relationship between both countries dates back to 1822, when Haiti colonized the Dominican Republic, which regained its independence 22 years later. Some Dominicans, in fact, often speak today of Haitian immigration as the “second invasion.”

However, there are also many Dominicans who refer to their neighbors as “siblings” and they value the work they do, which represents 30% of the workforce in livestock, agriculture and construction in the Dominican Republic, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“Those who are around here are working”says Lidia Fernádez, a 64-year-old spice seller. “We don’t do the jobs that Haitians do.”

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