A protester holds up a sign reading: End statelessness

Over a decade of enduring and resisting statelessness in the Dominican Republic

Uncertainty and human rights violations for Dominicans of Haitian descent

By: Elena Lorac, co-coordinator of Movimiento Reconocido

It was September 2013. I had managed to get accepted into university, but I still needed the identity card that would actually allow me to take classes. Then in the afternoon on Monday, 23 September 2013, at Centro Montalvo, we got news of the court’s decision in judgment 168-13 against Juliana Deguis, which stripped over 200,000 people of their nationality.

The court had to find in our favour for me to be able to go the next day to get my identity documents and correctly enrol at the university. But it didn’t. It was a sorrowful afternoon, and the start of an 11-year road I am still on today.

When I listened to the arguments of the lawyer and legal experts, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the court’s decision. I had no idea of the difficulties in store. The press amplified the news. We asked ourselves: why so much injustice, racism, discrimination, and segregation against a group of people who just want to make something of their lives? They say we’re foreigners, but we were born here. Why so many lies and double standards? Then the hate speech flared up, although others took a stand for our rights. I felt something similar in September 2023, when those convoys of war tanks and armoured trucks were bearing down on a people that just needs water: water is life, and so are the right papers for those who don’t have them.

I just remember them saying: “How can they possibly take away the nationality of so many young people?” And then in the next news segment, I saw someone had been issued a card to regularize their migratory status and thought: “If they treat me as a foreigner, where would I go? What country would I go to? I have no ties to Haiti.” I thought about the Dominicans who go abroad and have children there, but they come back and they have houses, or their kids know the language. But I could barely speak Creole, and my parents no longer remember where they were born.

23 September 2013 was a pivotal moment for me, as it was for every Dominican of Haitian descent. On that day, our last modicum of hope was snuffed out. I remember that many of the people supporting us at the time said: “Don’t worry, this will blow over. There’ll be a solution.” I never imagined that today I would look back on over a decade that has passed since the cruel decision of the Constitutional Court, a body whose main function is to ensure people’s human rights but that instead breaks its own rules to legitimize an entire oppressive system of stigmatization and systemic racism that has prevailed throughout history, a system stacked against Dominicans of Haitian descent because we are black and trace our lineage to a nation that played a major historic role in the fight against slavery.

Today marks 11 years since this terrible decision that validated all the administrative practices of the Central Electoral Board, practices that violated the human rights of those born in the Dominican Republic with the constitutional guarantee of jus soli (right of soil), a right that was reframed to instate a system that denies children of foreign parents—especially children of Haitians who came and contributed to this country—the right to Dominican nationality.

I wish that today the discussion could be about well-being, about progress. I wish that instead of speaking to the realities that we Dominicans of Haitian descent endure in our country, we could be talking about economic development, or about how a Dominican of Haitian descent was accepted to Harvard a won awards there, or about business ideas we plan to pitch.

Now, 11 years on, we should be talking about what we’ve put behind us and how far we’ve come. But we’re not. Instead of advancing human rights against a backdrop of rule of law and democracy, we find ourselves in an era of backsliding, even while much is being said about a government committed to change. But what kind of change? A change that will make the reality of black Dominicans of Haitian descent even worse? A change that will continue robbing thousands of youth of their dreams of studying, attending university, working, being able to register the births of their children, get married, or even do things as simple as buy a chip for their cell phone? It should not be impossible for parents to name their children, for young athletes to be signed on to teams and represent our country abroad, or for other youth to be able to achieve their dreams of practicing medicine or law, or starting a business to contribute to our economy and nation.

Sadly, they can do none of these things, because the very state that should stand up for their rights and bring about a change does just the opposite, and instead takes backward and illegal action to arbitrarily detain and deport young people who were born in the Dominican Republic. It instead acts out the discrimination, inequity, and inequality that have dominated all these years of struggle and resistance.

Today I urge the Dominican state, through its government, to return to lawfulness so that we can put statelessness—which the county continues to see as up for debate even now in the 21st century—behind us. So that the Dominican youth of Haitian descent, who for decades have been awaiting a real and effective response to the hijacking of our fundamental rights, can enjoy the same rights as the rest of the population. The Dominican state has an opportunity to fulfil its obligation to make reparations, which would restore our nationality not only by giving us identity cards, but also by giving us justice and respect for our fundamental human rights.

No more statelessness! No more driving out Dominicans of Haitian descent! And no more racism, full stop!