Haitian homes ransacked by local Dominicans. Attacks against Haitian communities are frequent as authorities are lax to respond.

Recently the JRS office in the Dominican Republic documented a case illustrating the Dominican government’s disregard for the vulnerability of asylum seekers: Immigration police arrested the minor daughter of an asylum seeker and deported the girl to a Haitian border town. Her frantic mother had no way to help her to return. Dominican authorities did not listen to the child’s pleas when they were deporting her and failed to ascertain whether any among the large group expelled had a claim for refugee status.

Discrimination

Complaints of discrimination and daily humiliation were universal among the Haitian women interviewed. Rooted in the island’s history of internal rivalry between nations, rebellions and brutal military dictatorships, racism and xenophobia against Haitians in the Dominican Republic is a structural problem reinforced by the denial of educational, social and legal rights for people of Haitian ancestry.

A Haitian girl being lowered off a Dominican army truck during a mass expulsion.

“My father was assaulted once on the street here: beaten for being Haitian. One time a man hit him with his car and called him names, all for being Haitian. These indignities he suffered after fleeing for his life from our homeland.” – Lissette

“I am here because I had to come here. But I do not want to stay. I do not want to die here. Here they treat us like a disease. I have been the victim of violence and discrimination many times here in the Dominican Republic. I was fired from a job I had, and they told me they didn’t want a Haitian working for them.” – Agathe

“Here no Haitian feels free. I would like to be in my own country, I would like to be in a place where I would be treated like a person who merits respect. Here they treat a Haitian with less respect than one would give to an animal.” – Rosemarie

Under Dominican law, all children born in Dominican territory have the right to Dominican citizenship. However, the children of Haitian asylum seekers are denied all citizenship rights.

Statelessness

Although the Dominican constitution guarantees citizenship to all persons born within the country's border, Haitian mothers are consistently denied official birth certificates for their newborn children in Dominican hospitals. This is true even for those seeking asylum or formerly holding refugee status within the Dominican Republic. A ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2005 brought the plight of Haitians’ Dominican-born children to the fore. The Court’s ruling found the Dominican government to be in violation of its own constitution because of its practice of systematically denying birth certificates to Dominicans of Haitian ancestry.

The government’s policy has created a class of stateless individuals: meaning, no state offers protection, security, and citizenship to the Dominican-born children of Haitian refugees. These children are routinely denied the rights due citizens in the areas of education, employment opportunities, health care and voting, and are vulnerable to exploitation and state-sanctioned discrimination. Some Dominicans of Haitian descent have suffered the greater indignity of being targeted for arrest, stripped of any proof of Dominican identity and have been expelled to Haiti by Dominican immigration police.

“I left Haiti as a refugee, and now my five children live their lives in misery. This hurts a mother. The children want more, but they are held back by the reality of their circumstances as children of Haitians living in a country that hates the sight of them.” – Sandrine

“My babies live here in misery and without anything, all because their mother is Haitian. They do not even have a bed to sleep in. They are malnourished. And they were born here! They are Dominican by law, but not by document.” – Lisette