How raids are reshaping impoverished areas
The Dominican Republic aims to deport 10,000 people each week, targeting Haitians and their Dominican-born descendants.
The podcast Behind the Quota reveals the human cost of this crackdown in the sugarcane regions of San Pedro de Macorís and Hato Mayor.
Reporting Fellow Shandra Back hosted this three-episode podcast series.
Episode 1: 'No Papers, No Rights'
Two teenage cousins are detained in a migration sweep. Neither has legal documentation or speaks Haitian Creole. Without papers, they’re treated as undocumented—and deportable to a country they’ve never set foot in.
Episode 2: 'The Cost of Deportation'
As two minors face detention and deportation, their family scrambles to pay corrupt middlemen—money that’s often the difference between freedom and the border.
Episode 3: 'Caught in the Cycle'
Nelson and Peter’s story is part of a system that counts deportations, not people, trapping them in a cycle of detention, payment, and return.
