Walls on Another Border
The Dominican Republic confronts Haitian illegal immigration
By Chuck Holton on March 1, 2023
Chuck Holton has spent two decades reporting on wars and disasters in more than 100 countries. He has 10 books in print and lives in Panama.
A spike in the number of Haitian migrants has been seen as hundreds are arriving in the Florida Keys each week, making the perilous, 600-mile crossing on insanely overcrowded boats and further straining the ability of the U.S. Coast Guard to do its real job — interdicting drug traffickers in the Caribbean.
Just one such example: In January, the Coast Guard intercepted a 50-foot sailboat carrying nearly 400 Haitian migrants not far from the remote Cay Sal Bank, an island located midway between Florida and Cuba. The Haitians were trying to reach Key West.
The Coast Guard captured more than 7,000 Haitians in 2022, as opposed to 1,500 in 2021. That’s still just a fraction of the more than 60,000 Haitians who walked across the U.S. Southern border last year. This begs the question: Why are so many Haitians coming by sea?
https://cis.org/Report/Walls-Another-Border
