Economically Haiti is already like a province of the DR. Haitians with some money have a home in the DR. There is all the labor in different industries. Haiti is dependent on the DR.
The problem with the Haitian illegal immigration is its size. It’s simply too many people in a short amount of time. Regardless of the intention or if anyone decides to put a blindeye to that, it will have a negative impact and those that will feel this impact the most are the locals. The immigrants are leaving from a place that even if the DR downgrades, it will still be better than Haiti. For them it will be a gain, less but still a gain. For most Dominicans they will feel the downgrade which will be perceived as going backwards rather than forward or static. Going backwards is never seen as good.
The other issue with Haitian illegal immigration is the population size and population growth of Haiti itself. Right now it’s estimated that it has 10-11 million people and growing at a faster rate than the Dominican population (taking into account that within the DR the Haitian population is growing at a faster rate than the Dominican population, which means there will be even more Haitians in Haiti and as time goes on Haitians will becone an even larger percentage of the population of the DR, Dominicans are essentially going to be displaced in the entire island if things continue as of right now and that isn’t an if or an I believe, it ‘s what is happening.) With that reality, Haiti could never develop and it will have a large excess population that will continue to migrate to the DR as long as there is a difference between the two and the DR is the most develop of both. The only ways that flow would drop is just two: 1) intensification of DR border controls and of the illegal immigration in the DR or 2) when the DR and Haiti are on equal footing which given that Haiti isn’t going anywhere, that means degrading the DR to the levels of Haiti. Go to Port-au-Prince and see how it’s beyond places like Petionville, Pacot, etc. In many areas you literally see hovels covering huge areas, beyond what you can ever see in SD. Tell me if that is desirable? Haiti is mostly to sonething for Dominicans to aspire to and the few that do have never been there and toured a good chuck of the country. There are things such as most people are nice, etc; but no one migrates from Haiti to the DR because the Dominican people are nice which for the most part they are too. It’s like Dominicans don’t migrate ro NYC to enjoy the better weather and the more fabulous beaches.
If Haiti was in the current situation but as a smaller country, with a population of lets say 3 million, and the Haitian illegal immigrant population in the DR would be what it’s right now, not only its cheaper but it’s perfectly doable to simply let the issue run its course with no need to intensify border control or even deportations. Haiti would simply runout of much of its excess population which the DR can absorb and due to that the illegal immigrant situation would resolve on its own . In fact, Haiti running out of its excess population wil, also benefit them since the main issue for Haiti given its current level if development is that it has more people than it can maintain with acceptable living standards. But that’s not reality.
What about setting up a refugee camp on the Haitian side of the border ?
From a Dominican point-of-view it isn’t prudent to increase the population in the Haitian border region beyond its natural increase from the people that already live there. The border regions of both countries are some of the least populated areas in esch country, though the Haitian size of the horder probably has more people than the Dominican side given Haiti’s higher population density.
A few years ago many people in the Dominican business community were proposing creating the Quisqueya Plan. It consisted pf many things including creating factories along the Dominican side of the border similar to CODEVI which essentially uses mostly Haitian workers living in the Haitian side of the border. They were selling it as if that was one solution to combat the illegal immigration issue since, according to them, it would be a sort of border wall that would stop or lessen the flow.
But that is nonsense. In reality what that creates is Dominican businessmen will be able to take advantage of Dominican stability and laws regulating business (plus the protection of the Dominican government since lets say one of the Haitian gangs -they were not an issue when Quisqueya Plan was proposed) takes over one of the factories, unlike Haiti the Dominican government will quickly deploy the Dominican military to combat and remove the gangsters (until now the Haitian gangs are quickly neutralized by the Dominican military and that is a major reason why they haven’t spread to the DR… yet) and retake the factories and return them to their owners. Plus, they would benefit by taking advantage of the Haitian worjers in the sense that they would be paid a Haitian wage, which practically all Haitian wages are condiderably less than Dominican wages for every sector.
Economic development also has the condequence of incresing the population as people settlecheavily the area where most of the money is made, that’s where large cities form all over the world and the DR and Haiti are no exceptions. The reason why in Latin America there is usually one city, mostly the capitals, that are considerably larger than any other city including the second largest in the country is due to centralization imposed by the government. An increase of the Haitian population in the border beyond its natural increase in the long term, especially if Haiti continues to not develop while the DR continues to develop, the gap between one side and the other will be more stark. By creating industry in the border it will make that region better reflect the wealth of the DR and that will contrast sharply with the lack of development in the Haitian side. To put it bluntly, the pressure for Haitians to illegally immigrate to the DR will be even higher. If you want to control illegal immigration, increasing the pressure beyond what it will be is no way to control it.
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