Toilet Mafia
I dont want to be construed in any way as defending the INS because they have mad problems as does US policy.
However, more Dominicans emigrate legally to the US than from any european country (according to INS statistics found on their site)
Europeans must also prove economic wherewithal to enter the US. If you are college educated or specially talented, you may get to take advantage of special visa categories for workers in demand. This is equally true for Dominicans and others. Regular joes without special skills may still obtain a lottery immigration visa.
If you are from a country with especially low emigration to the US you may qualify for a "Diversity Visa." Most larger european countries cannot take advantage of this. The only country in this hemisphere that is eligible is the Bahamas.
Now, why do so many Dominicans want to come here? I have had lengthy discussions with many of my Dominican Friends and they all paint the same picture: The village idiot from the old neighborhood makes it over here and gets a menial job doing something nobody else wants to do, cleaning toilets or something. He saves up a little bit of money, and a year later when he goes back home to visit, he is going to cavort around like Thurston Howell or Bill Gates and tell a bunch of lies about how he runs the toilet mafia in New York. He is spending his last dime trying to impress the babes and wearing borrowed clothes.
Now when he goes back to New York, all his peers from the old neighborhood say "Wow, if the village idiot can go to USA and become a big shot, then we can too!" So there you have it.
Now obviously most Dominicans don't fall for this ruse, but enough do.