Pres Ali engages Caricom Chair over mass deportation of Haitians from DR

Government of the Dominican Republic (DR) plans to deport thousands of Haitians from that country because of gang violence and poverty in Haiti, but President Dr Irfaan Ali has since engaged the Chairman of Caricom, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, to derive an action plan to prevent further harm from being done to Haitians.
The Dominican Republic disclosed on Tuesday that it has deported or repatriated nearly 11,000 Haitians in the past week, fulfilling a pledge to do so weekly as it scrambles to handle the influx of Haitians while being besieged by gang violence and poverty.
Government of the Dominican Republic plans to deport up to 10,000 Haitians each week, and this has prompted Haitian officials to request an emergency meeting at the level of the Organization of American States (OAS). At least half a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, according to human rights groups.
The Guyanese Head of State told media operatives on Tuesday that Caricom is committed to tackling as a unit this and other issues affecting Haitians. He disclosed that the matter would be discussed at length during an upcoming meeting of leaders of Caricom member states, and that security is high on the agenda of that meeting.
“We delved into the matters, and I know that in our upcoming meetings, we have a meeting on security, a special meeting on security. This issue will be raised. I know the Chair of Caricom is already flagging this issue for the course of discussion. We will have a collective perspective. I do have an individual perspective, but let us wait until we have the collective perspective of the region,” Ali has said.
The DR Government had stated the deportation is necessary, and has cited an “excess” of immigrants as relations between the countries sharing the island of Hispaniola continue to sour. These deportations are the largest in recent history between these two countries.
Earlier in the year, thousands of Haitians started to leave their homeland amid political violence. As a means of bringing back normalcy to that country, Caricom, led by President Dr. Irfaan Ali, who was Chairman at the time, managed to initiate a Transitional Presidential Council that is
tasked with guiding Haiti towards elections, the restoration of order, helping to identify an interim Prime Minister, and replacing the then Prime Minister Ariel Henry, among other things. The mandate of that Transitional Presidential Council expires in February 2026, by when elections must be held.
Haiti has been engulfed in turmoil since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Its streets have since been overrun by gangs, and a continuous cycle of violence has since existed. Violence flared even more when, in February, criminal gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince conducted coordinated attacks targeting police stations, prisons, critical infrastructure and civilian sites in the city.
On March 2, armed gangs raided two penitentiaries and reportedly freed some 3800 inmates, after which Haitian authorities announced a three-day state of emergency and imposed a nighttime curfew.