Jacqueline Charles reports, for Miami Herald, on the closed border between Dominican Republic and Haiti.
“What is fundamental in all of this is the color of the skin, which shows that even… the Black Dominican population is in danger,” said [Edwin] Paraison.
But the fear that anyone who is of a darker hue can be arrested and detained because authorities think they are Haitian isn’t isolated to Black Dominicans. Last November, after the country launched mass deportations of Haitians, the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo warned African-American visitors they could be mistaken for being Haitian and be detained and deported to Haiti.
Dominican officials rejected the U.S. criticism and said the travel alert had negatively affected tourism. Testifying before a congressional committee four months later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the warning.
[…]“… there is a reality that exists, it’s racism. But the authorities don’t acknowledge it and they hate it when people talk about it,” she said. “And when you speak about it, you become the person who is in danger, who is targeted.” That means, she said, the Dominican Republic remains unable to tackle the issue of racism.
“Cristina is not the first Dominican who has been confused with being Haitian and then sent to Haiti,” she said. “But what has made this case even more grave is that she is someone who suffers from mental problems and the authorities did not take this into consideration. It shows how Dominican immigration works.”
