Stand Up for Dominicans of Haitian Descent & Haitian Migrants!
Since at least 2004, the Dominican government has implemented a policy to deny nationality documents to the Dominican-born children of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority from Haiti. A Constitutional Court ruling made this an official policy in 2013, revoking the citizenship of hundreds of thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent born in the country since 1929.
In 2013, the government announced a parallel process to “regularize” undocumented migrants, the parents and grandparents of the Dominicans of Haitian descent who had been stripped of their citizenship. Anyone who failed to register and meet a long list of tough requirements would be subject to deportation.
Now, hundreds of thousands of people — both Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent — are at risk of being deported.
We are therefore looking to collaborate with students, activists, and community members by providing an informational toolkit about denationalization and deportation in the Dominican Republic. You can help spread the word about this issue and organize people by putting together a teach-in, movie screening, or community discussion.
The We Are All Dominican Toolkit includes a short film created by the critical activist group Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, as well as video testimonies of young Dominicans of Haitian descent sharing their stories of being denied their national identity documents and the negative impact this has had on their lives. It also includes background information about the issue, materials you can distribute during your event, as well as discussion questions and activities your members can do to express solidarity with our Dominican brothers and sisters of Haitian descent. We hope you will find these resources useful for your event.
Do you have any events lined up or are you interested in holding a teach-in or community discussion about this issue? If so, we would love to collaborate with our Toolkit and provide any additional guidance you may need! Write to us at wearealldominican@gmail.com.
Thank you for your solidarity and your collaboration.
Organizing Your Event
1. Discussion Questions
Handouts
1. Introductory Fact sheet (English/Spanish)
2. Timeline of Denationalization (English/Spanish)
3. Fact Sheet about Law 169-14 (English/Spanish)
4. 10 Things You Should Know About the Civil Genocide in the DR (English)
5. Short Fact Sheet about Civil Genocide in DR (English/Spanish)
Background Materials
#BlackLivesMatterInDR Reading List
News Reports & Op-Eds
In the Dominican Republic, A Manufactured Humanitarian Crisis (Editorial, Los Angeles Times)
Dominicans of Haitian Descent Fear Mass Deportation as Deadline Looms (The Guardian)
Dominican Republic Set to Deport Haitian Migrants (New York Times)
The Bloody Origins of the Dominican Republic’s Ethnic ‘Cleansing’ of Haitians (Washington Post)
The Dominican Republic’s Mass Haitian Deportation Reflects Its Racist History (The Guardian)
Black Bodies in Motion and in Pain (by Edwidge Danticat, The New Yorker)
Citing Abuse, Haitian Immigrants Flee Dominican Republic (NPR)
Black Lives Under Attack in the Dominican Republic, Why This Crisis Deserves Our Attention (TheGrio.com)
Displaced in the DR: A Country Strips 210,000 of Citizenship (Harper’s Magazine)
Dominicans of Haitian Descent Cast Into Legal Limbo by Court (New York Times)
Suddenly, Illegal at Home (New York Times)
Dominican Republic: Justifying the unjustifiable (Al Jazeera)
Xenophobia and racism back in the Dominican Republic (Al Jazeera)
The Dominican Republic and Haiti: A Shared View from the Diaspora (Americas Quarterly)
We Are All Dominican’s Open Letter to President Danilo Medina: Voices from the New York Diaspora
Legal Analyses
Analysis of court decision TC 168-13 by Dominican constitutional lawyer Nassef Perdomo
Left Behind: How Statelessness in the Dominican Republic Limits Children’s Access to Education (Georgetown Law School)
Don’t Be Fooled by the Dominican Republic’s Judicial Laundering of Racism (Julia Harrington Reddy, Open Society Foundations)
Judicial Denationalization of Dominicans of Haitian Descent (Forced Migration Review)
We Are Dominican: Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality in Dominican Republic (Human Rights Watch/Spanish version)
Videos and Films
1. Birthright Crisis
Birthright Crisis is a documentary produced by Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees. Drawing on personal accounts, the documentary explores the challenges facing Dominicans of Haitian descent and their Haitian immigrant parents, including discrimination, violence, and attempts by the state to deprive them of crucial ID documents, as well as the inspiring ways that young Dominicans of Haitian descent have mobilized to fight for their rights.
2. Testimonies of young Dominicans of Haitian descent
This video compiles, with English subtitles, several personal testimonies gathered by the Dominican Republic’s affiliate of World Vision/Visión Mundial. In it, young Dominicans of Haitian descent share their stories of being denied their birth certificate and national ID card, and the negative impact this has had on them, largely putting their lives on hold.
3. Statelessness in the Dominican Republic
An analysis of laws and policies, preceding the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision, used by the Dominican government to deprive Dominicans of Haitian descent of crucial ID documents needed for basic life activities, including going to school, getting a job, and getting married.
4. Lakay (Home)
A short documentary that investigates the virtually unknown fight of Haitian-Bahamians, the second generation of Haitian immigrants, born without a nation. Stateless in the country of their birth.
We Are All Dominican 
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I am glad to find a Channel that provides the public information and an opportunity to participate in the struggle of our Haitian Brothers And Sisters.
I will share this contact with many people that I know are concerned about the horrible And painful conditions that the
Dominican Government has put our Haitian people through.