The Dominican Republic Is Committing Human Rights Crimes Against Haitians — And the World Is Letting It Happen
Published by The Haitian Pulse | Editorial Desk | June 3, 2025
Pregnant women are being dragged from hospital beds. Newborns are being tossed across borders. This is not border control—it is racial cleansing.
In a deeply disturbing campaign that has drawn global condemnation but little action, the Dominican Republic has escalated its crackdown on Haitian migrants—targeting women, children, and the most vulnerable in a calculated effort to purge Haitians from its society.
According to a report published Monday by The Jamaican Gleaner, Dominican authorities detained over 2,000 Haitians between April 21 and May 30 alone, including 186 pregnant women and 559 who had recently given birth. These arrests took place in and around public hospitals, where Haitian women—many fleeing gang violence and a collapsed medical system back home—sought life-saving care.
In April, Dominican officials began raiding health facilities and enforcing new identification policies that require patients to present proof of employment, residence, and legal status before receiving treatment. The consequences have been devastating. Reports confirm that even women in active labor have been forced out of hospital beds and into immigration detention.
The United Nations has called this practice a violation of international standards, yet the Dominican government, under the hardline leadership of President Luis Abinader, has shown no signs of relenting. Since 2020, Abinader has overseen a nationalist campaign that includes mass deportations, construction of a border wall, and increasingly draconian migration laws.
But what’s unfolding now goes far beyond politics. It is an attack on Haitian life itself.
A Legacy of Hate
Anti-Haitianism in the Dominican Republic is not new. It is deeply embedded in the country’s social and political fabric. In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo orchestrated the massacre of up to 30,000 Haitians living near the border. That genocide, remembered as the Parsley Massacre, set the tone for generations of exclusion, violence, and dehumanization.
Today, that same hatred has taken on new forms, clothed in bureaucracy and enforced by immigration agents. The requirement of documentation in hospitals isn’t a neutral policy—it is a weapon. Dominican authorities know that Haitians escaping Port-au-Prince, where gangs control nearly 85 percent of the capital, do not have the papers they demand. They are using this fact to justify detention, deportation, and public humiliation.
In essence, they are making pregnancy a crime. They are making medical need a crime. They are making being Haitian a crime.
The Manufactured Myth of Haitian Poverty
The international press repeatedly describes Haiti as the “poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” What they rarely say is that this poverty is by design. It is the result of colonial theft, forced reparations, decades of foreign intervention, and an international system that continues to extract more than it gives.
Despite these challenges, Haitians remain some of the hardest-working and most resilient people on Earth. Migrants do not cross into the Dominican Republic seeking charity. They come seeking safety from chaos imposed upon them—chaos the world helped create.
The Dominican government’s current actions are not about national security. They are about eliminating a people it has long treated as expendable.
The Silence That Kills
Human rights organizations have raised the alarm. The United Nations has voiced concern. Yet, meaningful international action remains absent. No sanctions have been imposed. No major global leaders have condemned the practice publicly.
This silence is complicity.
How many pregnant women need to be dragged from delivery beds before the world says enough? How many infants need to be deported within hours of birth before global institutions acknowledge the cruelty for what it is?
What we are witnessing is not a policy dispute. It is a humanitarian emergency. It is ethnic cleansing in broad daylight.
A Call to Haitians Everywhere: Unite or Be Erased
This is not just about those trapped on the border. This is about all of us—across the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and beyond. If you are of Haitian blood, this is your fight.
We must do more than condemn—we must organize. Economic boycotts, diplomatic pressure, coordinated global advocacy—all of it must be on the table. The time for fragmented responses is over.
We must move as one.
That is the mission of The Haitian Pulse—to connect the global Haitian population into a single, mobilized force capable of confronting these injustices with clarity, courage, and coordinated action. We are building tools not just to tell our story—but to change its course.
Because if we do not rise together now, we may not have the strength to rise later.
Your Voice Matters
If you’ve read this far, you are not a bystander. You are part of a growing movement that refuses to stay silent in the face of state-sanctioned cruelty.
We invite you—Haitian or ally—to leave a comment below. Share your thoughts. Share your outrage. Let this be the beginning of something greater than outrage. Let it be the beginning of organized resistance.
To stay informed and take action, visit thehaitianpulse.com.
We are not disposable. We are not powerless. We are not finished.
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