Migration Flow Out of Haiti a Regional Issue, Dominican Republic Greatly Affected

Roberto Alvarez

And, given the Dominican Republic’s geographic location to Haiti, we asked Foreign Minister Alvarez about the migration challenges his country is facing. The migration flow out of a severely impoverished Haiti has become a growing regional issue. Minister Alvarez offered some insight into how other Central American and Caribbean can address this issue, given his country’s experience.

Roberto Alvarez, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dominican Republic

“Very difficult to deal with the migration flows out of Haiti. We are dealing with them throughout the region, so you can imagine how it is in the Dominican Republic, very tough. For example, our maternity wards right now, thirty-three percent of births in public hospitals in the Dominican Republic are of Haitian women who are irregular migrants in the Dominican Republic. Sixteen percent of our health budget is dedicated to Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, most of who are in an irregular situation. So, until internally in Haiti the elites are able to actually come together in a consensus program and persevere overtime and the international community lends a hand to Haiti in terms of assistance to the police, because the Haitian police cannot deal with the gangs in Haiti by themselves, sixty-five percent of Port of Prince is in the control of gangs and as we were talking earlier, one of the serious situations we have to look out for and caution the international community, is if they do not act in the case of Haiti and they just plow through and hold the elections, who will reach power? It may be, and that is one of the things we must avoid and that is candidate supported by the gangs. So, we have a very serious regional situation which actually transcends the borders of Haiti.”