The Dominican Republic will crack down harder on migrants as Haitians flee violence

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Dominican President Luis Abinader has announced more than a dozen measures to crack down on migrants who have entered the Dominican Republic illegally as people in neighboring Haiti flee a surge in gang violence.

The measures that Abinader qualified as “painful but necessary” in a speech Sunday include charging patients for hospital services and sanctioning those who rent homes or commercial businesses to migrants who lack proper documentation.

“The rights of Dominicans will not be displaced. Our identity will not be diluted. Our generosity will not be exploited. Here, solidarity has limits,” Abinader said.

He said that starting on April 21, hospital staff will be required to ask patients for their identification, work permit and proof of residence.

If a patient is unable to present any of those documents, they will receive medical attention and then be deported immediately, Abinader said, adding that a migration agent will be stationed at every hospital to ensure compliance.

The government also will deploy an additional 1,500 soldiers to the border that the Dominican Republic shares with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, boosting the total number of personnel stationed there to 11,000, Abinader said.

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He also announced that he would speed up construction of an additional 8 miles (13 kilometers) of border wall to add to the 34 miles (54 kilometers) already built.

“I recognize that many are concerned about the threat Haiti poses,” Abinader said. “Concerned about the irregular migration it causes. Concerned about the burden this places on our hospitals, our schools, the risks to our security, and the strain on our economy.”

Roudy Joseph, a human-rights activist, said he wasn’t surprised by the announced measures because Abinader’s administration was already informally implementing some of them. He called the deployment of migration agents to hospitals “a message of terror to the Haitian community.”

“We already have cases where people are suffering from health problems and are not going to the hospital,” he said.

Joseph accused the government of being racist and xenophobic against the Haitian community in the Dominican Republic, saying it was sympathizing with an ultranationalist movement.

Abinader’s administration has deported more than 180,000 migrants suspected of living in the country illegally since it announced in October that it would deport 10,000 of them a week. Human rights activists and dozens of those who have been deported have accused the government of abuse, including breaking into homes without a warrant to arrest people.

Abinader also announced that legislators would debate a new bill calling for stricter penalties against those who help migrants cross into the Dominican Republic illegally.

“The violence that is destroying Haiti will not cross over to the Dominican Republic,” Abinader said.

The president added that he would try to have businesses hire only Dominican workers in certain sectors.

“For far too long, agriculture and construction have depended on illegal workers,” he said.

Abinader spoke a week after an ultranationalist movement organized a protest in a Dominican community where many Haitians live to demand that the government impose measures against illegal migration. Members of the movement threatened to protest across the country if their demands were not met.

Abinader’s announcement also comes as gangs in Haiti that control at least 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, continue to attack once-peaceful communities in a bid to control more territory.

Abinader called on the international community to “do their duty,” noting that Haiti needs help and that the Dominican Republic “cannot and should not bear the burden of a crisis that is not theirs.”

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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.