Inside the Dominican Republic’s Escalating Deportation Crackdown Targeting Haitians

Under a government quota of 10,000 deportations per week, the Dominican Republic is carrying out an aggressive campaign targeting Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian descent, pushing into sugarcane settlements long considered informal safe zones. Migration agents are raiding settlements called bateyes, both public and private communities, and are often disregarding human rights in the process. 

This project documents how these raids are reshaping some of the country’s most impoverished areas, exposing widespread human rights abuses, corruption, and stark discrepancies in official deportation data.

Through on-the-ground fieldwork, photography, and expert analysis, this project's reporting captures a rapidly escalating campaign at the intersection of migration, race, and regional politics, revealing the human toll of policies designed to meet an unattainable quota.