HAVANA (AP) – As Haiti spirals into rapid chaos, its island neighbor the Dominican Republic has responded with a crackdown on migrants and a military buildup the government says will “guarantee border security.”
But some fear the moves will only deepen long-standing xenophobia against Haitian migrants and hurt both nations’ economies.
On Sunday, Dominican President Luis Abinader announced the country’s largest purchase of military equipment since 1961 — six helicopters, 10 planes, 21 armored vehicles and four anti-riot trucks.
If international troops were sent in response to a Haitian government call for help against gangs, “we would close and blockade the border. … It is very dangerous for the integrity of the Dominican Republic to accept asylum seekers in the country,” Abinader said in a press conference.
Dominican officials also announced that they would consider even tighter migration controls at the Haitian border in the future.
Tensions have long simmered between the two nations, who share a more than 240-mile border on the island of Hispaniola.
Haiti’s crisis was exacerbated by the assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, and gangs have increasingly wielded power to counter a weak government. This has triggered a massive flight of migrants and the Dominican Republic has gradually become tougher with its migration and border policies.
Among the most drastic measures was the start of construction of a Trump-style wall along the border.
Migrant aid leaders like William Charpantier Blanco, head of the National Committee for Migrants and Refugees in the capital Santo Domingo, said anti-migrant groups have been empowered by the new policy.
“The migration situation in the Dominican Republic has never been good, but in the last two years it has deteriorated significantly,” he said. “With the economic and political crisis Haiti is going through, the Dominican government has seen massive crackdowns on deportations.”
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Charpantier Blanco also noted that the migrants were mostly working-class Haitians, but now his organization sees a growing wave of exodus from the middle class and elite.
One of Haiti’s most powerful gangs — as well as anti-government protesters — have besieged key fuel supplies in Port-au-Prince, leaving not only fuel but water and other essential supplies in short supply. Abinader previously described Haiti’s turmoil as a “low-intensity civil war.”
As a result, the UN Security Council is considering a request by the Haitian government to send in foreign troops to pacify the gangs, or at least ease the blockade.
The disorder has increased fears among many Dominicans, such as Paterno Valenzuela, that gang violence could encroach on their own country.
Valenzuela, 56, a farmer in the border town of Elias Pina, said while he hasn’t seen a surge in violence in his area, “he’s preparing because this crisis in Haiti is really bad.”
The Dominican farmer described seeing large groups of migrants climbing through the mountains fleeing the country and expressed concern at the increase in contraband goods, such as petrol, flowing across the border. He said he would support foreign intervention if it came to that.
But the Caribbean country could lose significantly if it were to close its border.
Officially, about $750 million is exported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti each year, the country’s third largest trading partner. More than $400 million worth of products are traded informally between the two countries, according to a 2017 study by the Dominican Central Bank.
The city of Valenzuela is one of many frontier economies inextricably linked to the neighboring country that depend on Haitian buyers for a basic source of income.
“All these cities (on the border) depend on the Haitian market,” he said.
Meanwhile, Haitian migrants like Charlie, who declined to give his last name for fear of retaliation, continue to live in a legal shadow country. He echoed the fears of migrant aid leaders like Charpantier Blanco that things could only get worse.
Charlie, 20, has lived in the Dominican Republic for most of his life and works in a bakery in Santo Domingo. He has no memory of growing up in Haiti, but earlier this year he was one of thousands of migrants deported to Haiti under the government’s crackdown.
Like many others, he returned to the Dominican Republic with the help of a friend who smuggled him back in.
“I don’t know anyone there (in Haiti),” he said.
Now he’s trying to be inconspicuous.
“I leave early in the morning and come home in the evening. I stay in business (the bakery) and there are sometimes when I stay on Sundays,” he said. “It’s a secret life… a very difficult life.”
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Associated Press writer Martin Jose Adames Alcantara contributed to this report from Santo Domingo.