Deportations of noncitizens in Dominican Republic protested by activists in Boston
By Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff,July 5, 2015, 12:00 a.m.
Beltha Desir (standing, right) was deported from the Dominican Republic on Saturday June 27th as she was walking with her 10-months-old daughter to prepare food at the field where her husband works.(HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images)
In the Dominican Republic, which is best known to some for its beaches, the deportations of noncitizens have divided the Caribbean nation and left thousands of people stateless or seeking refuge in Haiti, where their ties may be tenuous or nonexistent.
But in Boston and other places across the country where people with ties to the Dominican Republic and Haiti have established sizable enclaves, the deportations have united people from both sides of the island in protest of what many are calling a humanitarian crisis.
"Eventually it's going to be our problem here so we have to deal with it on the island now," said Marie St. Fleur, a Haitian-American and former state representative.
St. Fleur was among representatives of the local Haitian and Dominican communities who met in front of the State House Tuesday to raise awareness about the deportations, which mostly affect people who are of Haitian descent or from Haiti.
State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, a first generation Haitian-American, and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh are encouraging people to reconsider traveling to the Dominican Republic, where tourism is a key economic engine.
State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry.((Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff)/)
Jet Blue recently added nonstop service between Boston and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which Dorcena Forry urged people to try.
"I think the American traveler is a key economic lever that can be used to influence decision makers," Dorcena Forry said. "Go elsewhere. Preferably Haiti."
The Boston-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti launched a Facebook page titled "Why I Cancelled My DR Trip." As of Saturday, it had more than 560 "likes."
The region's large Haitian and Dominican communities are also planning other events to raise awareness. There are 13,825 Haitian-born people and 16,721 Dominican-born people living in Boston, according to the most recent count by the Office of New Bostonians. The region is home to many more people of Haitian or Dominican descent.
A march between the Consulate General of Haiti to the Consulate General of the Dominican Republic in Boston is planned for July 9, said Charlot Lucien, one of the organizers. Dorcena Forry said she is working on a joint resolution by legislators to denounce the actions of the Dominican government.
People are being urged to call their elected leaders in the federal government. US Representative Michael Capuano, a Democrat from Somerville, said he wants the Dominican Republic to "come to their senses."
"I hope the Dominican Republic does the right thing before we have to start pushing economic issues," Capuano said. "If they won't, then that will be the next step."
Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the island of Hispaniola, and relations between the two nations have a tense history. In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the Parsley Massacre, which targeted Haitians and Dominicans who looked dark enough to be Haitian.
The killers found targets by asking them to say perejil, the Spanish word for parsley. Those who could not roll the "r" were given away.
The crackdown now facing migrants in the Dominican Republic dates back to 2010 when the country amended its constitution to exclude all those born to undocumented migrants from automatically obtaining citizenship.
Until then, anyone born in the Dominican Republic was considered a citizen unless their parents were diplomats or "in transit," according to a briefing by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.
The law was tightened even further in 2013 when the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court ruled that citizenship could be granted only to those born to one Dominican parent since 1929, the briefing said.
The decision retroactively deprived citizenship to more than 200,000 people born in the Dominican Republic to undocumented migrants between 1929 and 2010, the briefing said. Many of those people were Haitian migrants or their descendants who came to work in sugarcane fields generations ago and never left. Many do not speak Creole or never have been to Haiti.
The ruling drew criticism worldwide, leading the nation to set up a naturalization process to grant a form of citizenship to some people. As of June 26, the government said it had certified the nationality of about 55,000 people, according to the Associated Press.
Frieda Garcia, a longtime Boston community leader who was born in the Dominican Republic, called the deportations "outrageous."
"It makes no sense," she said.
Representatives from the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti recently returned from the border between the two countries and interviewed people entering Haiti.
Wesley Laine, a legal fellow at the institute, said one man crossing the border had fled the regime of Haitian President Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier in 1985 and was classified as a refugee by the United Nations.
He married a Dominican woman, but decided to leave after some homes in his neighborhood were burned and he learned of the killings of three Haitians, Laine said.
"He felt that his neighbors had turned on him," Laine said. "He had nowhere else to go."
An earlier version of this story incorrect reported the the Haitian regime that one man fled in 1985. The man fled regime of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
