Haitians living in fear in the Dominican Republic

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Dominican Republic is the Caribbean’s number one tourist destination. Last year 11 million visitors came here, many enjoying the five star resorts that skirt the island’s coast. Much of the construction work building those tourist facilities is in fact done by Haitians, and many of the staff who work in them are from Haiti, which occupies the western half of this island of Hispaniola. Over recent years the tourism industry has helped make the Dominican economy the fastest growing in Latin America.

However, the Dominican government is now implementing one of the most systematic deportation policies anywhere in the world. Last year the president, Luis Abinader, announced that his country would expel illegal migrants at the rate of ten thousand a week. The chief target is Haitians and people of Haitian descent. President Abinader says he is keeping his country secure and implementing the constitution. Meanwhile Haitians in the Dominican Republic are living in fear of raids by the immigration authorities and of being sent back across the border, to a country riven by violence as well as political and economic instability. John Murphy is in the Dominican Republic to talk to Haitians stuck between a rock and a hard place. This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:10.0	Now, shift your hips and they're allowed to each other.
0:14.8	Early morning yoga on the beach, on this soft sand with the waves lapping at the shore.
0:21.7	Or perhaps you'd prefer some gentle meditation with soothing music.
0:27.0	The Dominican Republic has become the number one tourist destination in the Caribbean,
0:32.1	though many of the visitors barely leave the giant five-star resorts
0:36.3	with their manicured lawns and welcoming swimming pools
0:39.3	that skirt the coast of this island called Hispaniola.
0:43.3	Many of the workers who built these places
0:46.3	and look after the tourists' requirements
0:48.3	are in fact Haitians, escaping the poverty, violence and instability
0:53.3	that reigns back home in Haiti in the west of this island.
0:58.0	But the Dominican government says they must go. Last year, the president announced an extraordinary
1:04.6	target of expelling undocumented Haitians at the rate of 10,000 a week, arguing there are a security risk. Now, many Haitians at the rate of 10,000 a week, arguing there are security risk. Now, many
1:14.5	Haitians here live in fear of being rounded up day and night and being sent back to an extremely
1:20.6	precarious existence in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
1:29.2	I'm John Murphy, and in this week's assignment,
1:32.5	we'll be travelling across the Dominican Republic,
1:35.7	meeting Haitians caught between a rock and a hard place.
1:49.0	The beach resorts of Pontacana are at the centre of the tourism industry here.
1:54.9	In 2024, 11 million holidaymakers visited the Dominican Republic,
1:58.0	the same number as the whole population of the country.
	...

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