Haitian Women Face Arrest and Deportation in Dominican Republic Crackdown

In the early morning hours, just two days before Mother’s Day, Lourdia Jean-Pierre went into labor. A 32 year old mother of four, Jean-Pierre had migrated to the Dominican Republic from her home country of Haiti.

Despite living near a hospital in El Seibo, Jean-Pierre told her husband she couldn’t risk seeking medical help. Dominican immigration authorities were stationed at hospitals with a decree to detain and deport Haitian women back to a country plagued by extreme violence, even if they had just given birth. Jean-Pierre felt that delivering her baby on the floor of her home, alone, was the safer option.

But Jean-Pierre would never get to celebrate mother’s day with her newborn. A few minutes after her baby arrived, she bled to death. 

When police arrived at the scene, they began deportation proceedings for Jean-Pierre’s grieving husband and hours-old newborn, according to a petition by an advocacy group. Were Jean-Pierre at a hospital, medical professionals believe, doctors likely could have saved her life. 

Jean-Pierre’s death marks the first confirmed fatality linked to the Dominican Republic’s specific targeting of pregnant and postpartum Haitian women amidst a broader ongoing campaign to deport Haitian migrants — a crackdown that advocates warn may lead to more deaths. 

In April alone, authorities deported approximately 900 pregnant or breastfeeding women, often separating them from their newborns. Haitian officials reported that 154 infants were sent back in five non-consecutive days in April at one border crossing, despite Haiti’s deepening crisis marked by political instability, surging gang violence, and a collapsing healthcare system following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

These mass expulsions follow the implementation of Dominican President Luis Abinader’s April announcement of new mandates to check ID, work permits, and proof of residence for patients seeking care at 33 of the country’s hospitals, the majority of which provide healthcare to expecting mothers. Dominican government statements say the measures will ease the burden on the health system and “streamline care for foreign patients.”

Since 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has called on all countries to “suspend the forced return of Haitians to their country,” citing gang violence, sexual violence, kidnappings, lootings, a cholera outbreak, and extreme levels of hunger. Pregnant and postpartum mothers are especially vulnerable to violence, disease, and exploitation.

“The gravity and severity of these human rights violations can’t be overstated,” said Gabrielle Apollon, coordinator of the Hemispheric Network for Haitian Migrants’ Rights. “This is a policy that will kill.”

As of April 21, immigration police are stationed at each hospital to check documentation. In some instances, they accuse people — even Dominican citizens of Haitian origin — of falsifying valid documents, or refuse to allow them to retrieve their documents from home. Pregnant women are terrified to seek care, said Liliana Dolis, the founder of MUDHA, a nonprofit supporting Haitian women in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican government has stated its commitment to “due process and respect for human rights, especially in cases of vulnerability.” But advocates warn the deportations, which amount to refoulement, as well as the collective expulsions and arbitrary detentions key to the Dominican Republic’s migration policies, explicitly violate international human rights law. 

In 2022, the Dominican Republic was elected to the UN Human Rights Council to promote, protect, defend, and fulfill human rights at the global level.

But accounts from within the country show otherwise.

The expulsions of new mothers have been accompanied by Dominican armed forces committing physical and sexual violence, advocates say. Sam Guillaume, a communications specialist at GARR, a non-profit that advocates for the rights of Haitian migrants, encountered a pregnant woman who was badly beaten by Dominican armed forces. “After the violence she experienced, she started to bleed,” said Guillaume. “We had to run to the hospital in the hopes she wouldn’t lose her child.”

On May 2, Manitha Jean Louis had a high-risk birth due to hypertension, which caused her to have a C-section. Four days later, while she was still recovering in the hospital, Dominican immigration authorities transferred her to a detention center known for its inhumane conditions. After two days there, they deported her to Haiti. Thanks to several nonprofits that advocated for her return, the Dominican government allowed Jean Louis to come back home to the Dominican Republic and reunite with her partner and baby, named Milagros — in English, “miracles”.

But few stories have happy endings. Another mother had complications during labor and delivery and had to recover in the hospital for several days after she gave birth. She was deported to Haiti without ever having held her baby.

Babies are often separated from their parents. In May, for example, Haitian authorities found a six month old baby who had been deported completely alone. 

“This is the reality we’re living with,” said Dolis. “It’s like a horror movie.”

The Dominican Republic has one of the highest neonatal mortality rates in the Caribbean, and maternal mortality is on the rise. Haitian immigrants in the country are susceptible to risk factors that increase maternal mortality, according to Adriana Wanderlinder, the program manager of the Dominican arm of Project HOPE, which works to decrease maternal and infant mortality around the world.

The Project HOPE-funded primary care center, Centro de Atencion Primaria, in Friusa, Dominican Republic, on January 17. Allison Hunter for Project HOPE.

Expecting Haitian mothers who migrated to the Dominican Republic often cannot afford food to meet their nutritional needs, predisposing them to hemorrhages and pre-eclampsia during labor and delivery – both of which can be fatal. In the cramped living conditions lacking clean water that many Haitian migrants endure, the risk of postpartum infection rises. Barriers to healthcare access increases each of these risks.

The deportation campaign not only makes women fear giving birth; it also stops them from seeking essential prenatal healthcare and attending checkups that set them up for a safe delivery. Wanderlinder says she has noticed that the number of expecting mothers attending prenatal appointments has decreased.

The Dominican Republic’s deportations of pregnant and postpartum women fall within a wider context of unprecedented mass deportations starting in October 2024, when the country announced a new policy of expelling up to 10,000 undocumented migrants each week.

Advocates for Haitian migrants’ rights decried the policy, announced on the anniversary of the 1937 Parsley Massacre when Dominican troops slaughtered tens of thousands of Haitian residents, as a death sentence.

Dominican police and military have arrested Haitians on the road, at work, in hospitals, and at home, sometimes in the middle of the night, according to Guillaume. He added that Dominican officials often destroy identification documents, including those signifying legal residency.

Haitians and people of Haitian origin across the Dominican Republic now fear for their lives. “People have been in fear hiding in their homes, afraid to go out,” said Apollon.

When the Dominican Republic targeted maternal hospitals for deportation on a smaller scale in 2021 and 2022, international outcry was swift and uncompromising. But as the current crisis continues to devolve, advocates fear that the Dominican Republic’s targeting of mothers and babies will be met with silence from the international community and go unchecked.

“We need moral support,” said Dolis. “Support to talk about this situation, to call attention. This type of help, to us, is the most important.”