Washington, D.C. (March 1, 2023) – A spike in the number of Haitian migrants making the 600-mile sea journey to the Florida Keys is being attributed to the increased difficulty in crossing into neighboring Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic, faced with a massive influx of migrants from Haiti that was crippling the social system, built a wall, with soldiers guarding the barrier at intervals.

Chuck Holton, who has spent the last two decades reporting on wars and disasters in more than 100 countries and the author of a new Center report, writes of the Dominican Republic, “After consultations with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the country has stepped up its program of rounding up illegal Haitians and sending them back to their home country, and is expanding the wall project to deter illegal crossings.”

Haitians have long crossed to the Dominican Republic looking for work, particularly in tourism and agriculture, providing a near-limitless supply of cheap labor. But the illegal numbers swelled to over two million in the Dominican Republic, causing a change in immigration policies.

According to Holton, “Haitians are making the trek to the U.S. in larger numbers, either by sea or by flying to mainland South America, usually Suriname or Ecuador, then making their way by bus to the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama and then on to the U.S. southern border to take advantage of Biden’s open-border policies. And now with the Biden administration’s new CBP One mobile phone app, which allows 30,000 Haitians per month to skip the dangerous and expensive journey and fly directly to the U.S, more Haitians will be incentivized to leave.”

The new app will allow more Haitians to leave the country, but the majority of the 60,000 Haitians who crossed the U.S. southern border in 2022 did not come directly from Haiti.  Most had left Haiti years ago and were making lives for themselves in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, or Brazil. Their decision to emigrate to the U.S. had nothing to do with fleeing persecution, violence, or even poverty, per se.