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Area Haitians, Dominicans, face off in Park Square over deportation crisis
By adamg on Fri, 07/10/2015 - 9:02am
Haitians march from Government Center to Park Square. Photo by Adam Castiglioni.
Area Haitians and Haitian-Americans protesting a plan by the Dominican Republic to expel tens of thousands of people who can't prove they're really Dominican marched yesterday from Government Center to the Dominican consulate - where they were met by area Dominicans and Dominican-Americans who think the plan is just fine. WBUR reports the two groups protested peacefully - and separated by police. Among the Haitian group: State Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry (D-Dorchester), who is Haitian-American.
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Comments
This is
GOPorn.
Good for the Dominicans
Instead of trying to flee Haiti, maybe Haitians should try and get the country together. As someone who's been to both sides of the island, it like different worlds.
You should probably read up
You should probably read up on what is going on there before commenting. The main issue is that even those who were born in the DR (indeed, even if the last two generations of their family were born in the DR) are still in danger of being "deported" to a country they never lived in and do not have citizenship in.
Actually I know exactly what's going on
I was there 3 weeks ago. Unlike America they don't have an anchor baby law.
If you want to really look at the big picture you should ask yourself why so many Haitian are trying to escape Haiti for DR. It's the same island, same crops, ocean, topography, and beaches. Yet Haiti has no exports, no stable government, no access to clean running water, no tourist industry, no functioning military, and ect......,
Hatians have only themselves to blame for the current state of their country.
And don't blame the quake because Haiti was in no better shape prior to it.
No it's not.
No, it is not. Haiti is on the leeward side of the island. They get less rain. Their land is not as good. And it was denuded and heavily damaged by centuries of having to over-farm the land to export sugar with which to pay reparations for their audacious theft of their own bodies from their French owners.
Yes, Haiti has had a lot of dysfunction and disorder. Remember we still celebrate the British for their enduring for 5 years the deprivations Haitians endured for 200. Humans are not very good at suffering quietly.
Do they have their own Donald Trump?
in the DR who complains about illegal Haitian immigrants? Many Trumps, it seems if DR passed this law.
You should read too
This is common practice around the world. There is no way a third world country like DR can support this type of migration. Not to mention they were the first and last country helping Haiti after the earthquake. Not to mention that they were given notice about this happening and had the opportunity to get their Dominican citizenships. The ones being deported chose not to apply for it. As far as the violence, it is very rare to see this happen. A lot of the videos being posted online were of unrelated events, for example thieves being beaten by groups after being caught stealing.
would you like to deport me to Russia?
on the basis that most of my grandparents weren't born in the US?
Uh oh
"Anchor baby" dog whistle in 3...2...
???
Like I said educate yourself before speaking. The US is a country that allows this to happen. I am American born with parents who came to this country legally from DR. Try and make sense next time bud, this doesn't apply in any way shape or form to the US. Can't even compare the government structure much less the economies .
Jus sanguinis vs jus soli
Jus sanguinis and jus soli are equally legitimate; there are good arguments to be made for each.
Au jus?
this isn't the roast beef thread
Hmm, looks like a lie somehow snuck in to that comment
What you said: "Not to mention that they were given notice about this happening and had the opportunity to get their Dominican citizenships."
What actually happened: tens of thousands of Dominican citizens of Haitian descent got their citizenship stripped by the High Court two years ago. There are a few 'foreign resident' slots available for the lucky, but the rest are barred from Dominican citizenship and must leave the country. They were given no notice about the court decision and have no option to get their citizenship.
Of course, I'm totally shocked that a blatant lie would be used to justify a lawless, racist decision by a government. Shocked shocked shocked.
Do you know how Haiti became
Do you know how Haiti became such a shithole?
When they got their independence, they were made to pay reparations for France's loss of property. The property in question: the Haitians.
So they issued bonds. And by the magic of compound interest, and the fact that Haiti is not the most productive farming corner of the region, they only finished paying in 1947. And they paid by farming their country to the bone.
Why didn't they just default, you might ask? Because until Bretton Woods, sovereign debt defaults were considered acts of war. And their next door neighbors were more than willing to assist in invasions of Haiti when they did default.
Before casting aspersions at black people who are 3rd generation Dominicans at this point, keep in mind that Dominicans are not especially inclined to observe the fineries of American immigration law, so to demonstrate in public, on an American street, in favor of these deportations, is the height of self righteous hypocrisy.
excellent history lesson.
Thank you for this. I knew it was absurd for the comment above to imply that Haiti had somehow chosen its destitution and ruin - but I didn't know exactly how and why they were ruined and rendered destitute. You can't just pull yourself up by the bootstraps after being enslaved, literally and then financially, for the entirety of your country's history.
How does it stay a shithole?
No condoms? Culture of corruption and crime? Those problems seem to multiply whenever colonists are kicked out of countries around the world. Corruption is so entrenched in Afghanistan and Iraq that the US military has to pay up itself to get anything done, for fleeting moments (despite laws making it a crime for American citizens to pay bribes).
These things are overdetermined
Once you get into this cycle it's rather pointless to ask "how did we get here."
There are plenty of countries where:
It's a perfectly self-reinforcing set of vicious cycles.
Berating the people who are stuck in it for not being better at pulling themselves up by their bootstraps is not very productive.
Load of crap
You failed to explain how the population fails to use condoms to control birth rates, HIV, swelling orphanages, and the cycle of poverty from having children they can't afford. So, yeah, I blame them for lack of self-control or use of birth control in the face of bad consequences.
Tourists won't come because they don't feel safe from crime there along with missing basics like reliable electricity and clean water. Streets not smelling of sewage is off-putting too.
Why is there no reliable electricity and thus no industry? Because a large percentage of the electricity produced is stolen by the population so no sane company will invest in new power plants and transmission facilities. But, hey, Haiti seems like the ideal place for solar energy, given how the population loves free. Just no way to pay back the capital investment and maintenance.
* There is not quite "no industry". The cell phone telecommunications industry has boomed in a country with less hard-wired infrastructure and a population that loves to talk, based on Haitian cab drivers I've had who never stop talking on their cell phone for the entire ride. The boom took off once bills were made easily charged to relatives back in the US or other foreign countries.
Adam....
... can you place accounts into "moderated" status? I know some boards can do this...
to quote a "Real Housewife" of Beverly Hills or something
Is your ass ever jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth (or fingers, in this case)?
Use of birth control is stupid
When you rely on your children as a social net. There ain't no social security in the third world, and infant mortality is a lot more common, hence the high birth rates. Get some economic development someplace and birth rates go down, religious beliefs notwithstanding. The HIV rate is also a sign, not a cause, or underdevelopment and economic inequality, since sadly poor women are made to sell their bodies to make some money.
Everything else you wrote dovetails with Leponge. And Digicel is looking to be listed on the NYSE, so save your pennies.
Soil restoration takes
Soil restoration takes generations. They're working on it, though.
They're also working to diversify their economy as much as they can, but their main source of cash is remittances from Haitians abroad, so again, that takes generations.
I won't dignify the details of your comment with a response, however. The disorder in Haiti is undeniable, but Haitians are no different from the rest of us. Their blood's red, their shit's brown, and you would not have acted differently from them if you were born into those circumstances.
I would still wear a condom
and would not go looting at any opportunity. Compare looting in Baltimore, and after severe earthquakes in Peru, Haiti, and Japan. The civilized people of Japan waited hours in long lines to buy a small ration of necessities from shops, and there was only minor looting in Peru. Haitians made roadblocks with the rubble.
Fineries of American immigration law
Given what happens regularly here (see San Francisco this week, Milford any week) I would argue that Americans are not especially inclined to observe the fineries of American immigration law.
And to pile on San Francisco further
This describes San Francisco to a T: crime-filled streets full of human waste and a nearly-exhausted supply of drinking water.
I'm disappointed to learn
I'm disappointed to learn there are Dominicans willing to defend this atrocity in public here.
What
Defend their country and its right to sovereignty, secure boarders and rule of law.
I only wish more Americans would stand up.
I wish
More Americans knew how to spell "borders". At least since this is happening elsewhere, we don't have to hear about "loosers who cross our boarders and can't talk English".
Good one, Michael.
Good one, Michael.
Context.
If you want to defend Dominican sovereignity, don't do it from a public street in a country that's been tolerating immigration legal, semilegal and illegal, from your won.
advice
Throw your computer/phone/tablet into the ocean, and do not return to the internet.
Those insecure boarders are a handful.
They sit around the boarding house kitchen all day biting their nails and getting jittery from all the coffee they drink.
Now that we've moved from Japan bashing to the possibilities of being ugly bigots about the various parts of Hispaniola, allow me to introduce today's "others", so the uncouth mean drivel can at least have some imagery to work with.
1. Haiti. Ti Manno https://youtu.be/rm4qvHITTfE
2 Dominican Republic. (merengue) https://youtu.be/YBpQ5uOEAEU
Good suggestion
> I only wish more Americans would stand up.
I've been typing away for hours. Definitely time to stand up and take a stroll to the water fountain, and maybe take a couple of ibuprofen while I'm at it.
Maybe, just maybe
Americans should mind their own business just for once after seeing how places that took their advice (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine, etc) have turned out?
And maybe, just maybe
America can implement universal pre-K.
No, that doesn't have anything to do with the story either, but I figured as long as we have a wish list of policies going...
If your comment isn't posting
It's probably because your subject line is something like "You moron" or "You're a fool."
I realize civility is something of a lost art, but please give it a try.