Overview:
A brand new report from NYU’s World Justice Clinic exposes systemic rights violations towards individuals of Haitian descent within the Dominican Republic, following a mass deportation coverage launched in late 2024.
A brand new report from the World Justice Clinic at New York College particulars alarming patterns of human rights abuses dedicated by Dominican authorities towards Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent, as the federal government ramps up deportations underneath a coverage enacted in October 2024 that requires not less than 10,000 Haitians to be deported every week.
The 42-page report, titled “Racial Profiling & Mass Deportation: Rights Abuses of People of Haitian Descent in the Dominican Republic,” launched final month, accuses the administration of President Luis Abinader of implementing racially discriminatory practices, together with arbitrary detentions, violent raids, and the separation of kids from their households.
Based on the report, Dominican officers have deported over 180,000 individuals to Haiti between October 2024 and March 2025—a determine that might exceed 360,000 by yr’s finish if present developments proceed. The report additionally extensively paperwork that individuals are being focused based mostly on their pores and skin coloration or perceived Haitian origin.
Authorities have been reported to storm properties in the course of the evening, detaining complete households with out warrants or due course of, in clear violation of worldwide regulation. In a single occasion, a younger Black Dominican man was detained by the Dominican Military and requested to pronounce “perejil,” the Spanish phrase for parsley, using the arbitrary identification techniques used to establish Haitians within the 1937 Parsley Bloodbath.”
“The Dominican Republic, just like the U.S., is utilizing unlawful means to conduct huge deportations. The deportations are based mostly on cynical calculations by political leaders that hateful, deceptive scapegoating of immigrants will excite their base,” stated Brian Concannon, govt director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti.
The mass expulsions come at a time when Haiti is going through a worsening humanitarian disaster, with multiple million individuals internally displaced amid gang violence and political instability.
“These mass expulsions not solely violate the rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants within the Dominican Republic,” the report states. “Additionally they put individuals’s lives in danger because of the rampant insecurity and violence presently in Haiti.”
A number of the most egregious violations outlined within the report embody racial profiling, the place Black people, together with Dominican residents, are being detained even with legitimate paperwork; household separations, the place youngsters have been deported with out guardians; and focusing on pregnant and postpartum ladies throughout raids. The report additionally contains accounts of bodily abuse, detentions in overcrowded amenities, and a scarcity of entry to primary requirements like meals and water.
“Racial Profiling and Mass Deportations supplies an antidote to this misconduct by fastidiously analyzing the deportations in gentle of credible information and well-established worldwide and Dominican Republic regulation,” Concannon stated.
“The important level is that the Dominican authorities should uphold the dignity and rights of Haitians inside its borders, however that respect begins with the Haitian state doing its half,” stated Johnson Bélance, a human rights advocate based mostly in New York.
Bélance, initially from Ouanaminthe, studied and lived within the Dominican Republic for practically 14 years earlier than returning to Haiti in 2018. He presently resides within the U.S. and is a member of the Nou Pap Dòmi grassroots motion..
The clinic additionally criticized the Dominican authorities’s use of militarized border enforcement, racialized policing, and a failure to offer authorized recourse to these detained.
The report urges the Dominican Republic to halt the present mass deportation program, finish racial profiling in migration enforcement, and restore pathways to authorized standing for Haitians. It additionally calls on the U.S. authorities to cease supporting Dominican safety forces allegedly concerned within the abuses.
“When Haiti fails to guard and doc its residents, it makes it simpler for others to dehumanize them,” Bélance stated. “True safety requires each nations to behave responsibly—one by respecting rights, and the opposite by making certain its individuals are not deserted.”