Haitians in the Dominican Republic Face Statelessness
On the island of Hispaniola, which is shared by the Dominican\nRepublic and Haiti, there is an ongoing and overlooked human rights\nand humanitarian catastrophe. In recent years, the government of\nthe Dominican Republic has taken measures to essentially strip\nethnic Haitians of Dominican citizenship. New legal statutes have\nthe potential to render about 500,000 people stateless. (For\ncontext and comparison's sake that is roughly the equivalent of the\nnumber of asylum applicants in Germany stemming from the Syrian\nrefugee crisis)\n\xa0\nThe roots of discrimination against Haitians in the Dominican\nRepublic run deep, but these citizenship laws are relatively new.\nOn the line with me to discuss this largely overlooked humanitarian\ncrisis in the western hemisphere is human rights researcher Ryan\nBacci. He explains the contours of these laws, their human rights\nand humanitarian implications on the ground, and offers some\nimportant historical context to understand how this kind of\ndiscrimination could be enshrined into a country's\nconstitution.\xa0\n
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