Statelessness and Refugeehood in the XXI Century: Dominican Republic as a case study

Abstract

The constant politization (and polarization) of certain issues between Dominican Republic and Haiti has turned some differences into irreconcilable contentions on both sides of the island. In the Dominican side, confrontations have escalated at least two times to reprehensible proportions, namely during the Massacre of 1937 and the Constitutional Court Judgement 168/13; the former saw the extermination of at least 20,000 Haitian and Haitian-descent people in bordering communities in the Dominican Republic, and the latter meant the official deprivation of nationality of hundreds of thousands of Dominican-born of Haitian-descent individuals. The denationalization of Haitian-descent persons was mitigated by the fact that the Dominican President Danilo Medina passed a Naturalization Law and started a National Plan of Regularization. Taking Dominican Republic as a case study to explore the relation between denationalization and statelessness with refuge condition, we arrived at the conclusion that deprivation of nationality and statelessness do not always amount to persecution by the state, except for cases that resulted in expulsions from the “country of former habitual residence”. Two specific points informed this conclusion: first, the act of denationalization and expulsion seems to have been based on reasons of race and (former) national origin; and the fact that people who were forcefully removed from the Dominican Republic will not be able to legally return to their country of birth without facing state persecution, as the Dominican government does not recognize these people as nationals. We hope these findings will benefit (certain) asylum seekers better argue their right to shelter in different countries of first entry where cases are still pending