Pres Ali calls in Caricom chairman about mass deportation of Haitians from DR

The government of the Dominican Republic (DR) plans to deport thousands of Haitians from that country due to Haiti’s gang violence and poverty, but President Dr. Irfaan Ali has since enlisted Caricom chairman Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell to initiate a to draw up an action plan to prevent further harm to Haitians.
The Dominican Republic announced Tuesday that it has deported or repatriated nearly 11,000 Haitians over the past week, fulfilling a pledge to do so weekly as it works to accommodate the influx of Haitians under siege by gang violence and poverty.
The government of the Dominican Republic plans to deport up to 10,000 Haitians every week, prompting Haitian officials to request an emergency meeting at the level of the Organization of American States (OAS). According to human rights groups, at least half a million Haitians live in the Dominican Republic.
The Guyanese head of state told media on Tuesday that Caricom is committed to tackling these and other issues affecting Haitians as a unit. He announced that the issue would be discussed in detail at an upcoming meeting of leaders of CARICOM member states, and that security would be high on the agenda of that meeting.
“We have looked into things and I know that in our upcoming meetings we will have a meeting on safety, a special meeting on safety. This issue will be raised. I know that the chairman of Caricom has already raised this issue for discussion. We will have a collective perspective. I do have an individual perspective, but let’s wait until we have the collective perspective of the region,” Ali has said.
The DR government has declared the deportation necessary and has reported a “surplus” of immigrants as relations between the countries sharing the island of Hispaniola continue to deteriorate. These deportations are the largest in recent history between these two countries.
Earlier this year, thousands of Haitians began leaving their homeland amid political violence. As a means to return normality to that country, Caricom, under the leadership of President Dr. Irfaan Ali, who was chairman at the time, to initiate a Transitional Presidential Council that
charged, among other things, with guiding Haiti towards elections, restoring order, helping to identify an interim prime minister and replacing then Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The mandate of that Transitional Presidential Council expires in February 2026, when elections are to be held.
Haiti has been in turmoil since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. Since then, the streets have been overrun by gangs and there has been an ongoing cycle of violence since then. Violence flared further when criminal gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince carried out coordinated attacks on police stations, prisons, critical infrastructure and civilian sites in the city in February.
On March 2, armed gangs raided two prisons and reportedly released some 3,800 prisoners, prompting Haitian authorities to declare a three-day state of emergency and impose a curfew.