Wednesday and Thursday, the supposed start to deportations, were quiet. Driving around we saw few Haitians in the streets, as most decided to stay in their houses for a few days. Attendance was also down at the JRF. The DR government has opened up at least 4 “welcome centers” to help process the undocumented Haitians, process being a nice word for detain and deport. There are supposedly 2,000 troops on standby and the General in charge of the deportations has made several bold statements over the last few days about getting all of the undocumented Haitians out of the DR. We believe they are serious.
The process for Haitians to get papers is an absolute mess. The “policies” regarding who can get paperwork, how they should go about it and the value of that paperwork are very different from what occurs in reality. Many Haitians had to wait in line for days, sleeping in the line on the sidewalk to get their papers, and many of these people were still unable to get their paperwork. The paper they are given is often not accepted as valid. Instead, there is a card that they are supposed to be sent that will be truly valid, this card is supposed to be sent to them within two months of getting the approval. We know people who were “approved” for the card 18 months ago and have still not received the card. We know at least 40 Haitians who have the paper that says they are approved; we do not know any that have received the card.
The president, Danilo, recently said there would be no mass deportations. Our guess would be this is more to appease the international media and community than an actual indicator of policy. They have been talking about these deportations for almost 2 years, they have whipped certain groups up to the point that doing nothing does not seem to be an option. We have heard they are going to make another 45 day extension for Haitians to try and get papers. This would work out well for us as in 45 days we should be much closer to being able to move to Jacmel.
Our guess is the deportation process is going to be a long grind. Sending troops into neighborhoods or really carrying out mass deportations in these first days and weeks, while the media is interested, would be a PR nightmare. However, they can carry out some deportations and step up the Guardia (deportation authority) patrols over the next 6 months or year with limited negative PR.
The biggest issue for our people is the loss of all their belongings. If they get grabbed by the authorities they cannot take anything with them to Haiti. Almost all of our families have been working for years to accrue their household items- from tables, chairs and beds, to TVs, refrigerators and fans, etc. If they are taken to Haiti and their house is empty for a few nights, their stuff will almost certainly be stolen.
Buying these household items is, for many of our families, a top priority. They will forego buying food a few days a week to free up extra money to buy this stuff. It is easy to mock the decision to not eat in order to buy a dining table, and there is a grin inducing amount of irony in that decision. However, it is important to remember that the family scrimped, sacrificed and saved for years to buy that table. It represents status in their community and was hard earned.
It has put us in a tough situation. Many of our families are a wreck emotionally and are begging us to help them get their things back to Haiti. We would love to help them, but at the end of the day we have to prioritize the use of our resources. We are considering giving the fathers who will be doing the construction with us an “advance” on their pay for the construction. They could then use this to move. This would require a good bit of trust on our part and it is likely that some of the fathers would disappear after getting the money.
