16 December 2015 - 11:18 PM
Four Modern Abuses Against Migrants
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1. Dominican Republic Engages in Mass Deportations of Haitians

A person walks past a graffiti depicting the drowned Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi.

The Dominican Republic finally acted on its long-pending pledge to deport Haitians who became undocumented after a controversial ruling by the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal stripped an estimated half-million Haitian descendents of Dominican citizenship retroactively.

Only a portion of these stateless Haitian-Dominicans have been able to successfully regularize their undocumented status, leaving an estimated 200,000 at risk of deportation to a country where many lack familial or community connections. 

The dispute caused a breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two islands which share the island of Hispaniola. Diplomatic relations were only recently restored in October

Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere and has suffered foreign-backed coups, environmental catastrophes, such as the 2010 earthquake, and  migration between the countries is common.

2. U.S. Pushes Its Migration Problem to the Mexico Border

Last year saw thousands of unaccompanied minors from Central America fleeing poverty, violent crime, and a dearth of opportunities cross into the United States.

Motivated by a quirk in U.S. policy that prevented their detention and immediate deportation, thousands made the perilous journey. U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended approximately 68,000 minors in the period from October 2013 to September 2014. 

The issue made headlines for weeks, then largely disappeared. 

Thousands still attempt the journey but the problem has now been largely transferred from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Mexico-Guatemala border, with the Mexican government now detaining far more Central Americans before they can ever make it to the next border further up north.

Deportations of Central Americans from Mexico increased 79 percent in the first four months of 2015, compared to the same period last year.

Responding to the Central American migrant crisis in 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama requested nearly 4 billion in aid to the region. The U.S. congress ultimately approved only US$300 million, mostly aimed at security initiatives.

3. Denmark Actively Tries to Dissuade Asylum Seekers

A new right-wing government took office in Denmark in June of this year and set off on doing what it could to discourage asylum seekers from attempting to resettle in the country. 

Backed by the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, the government of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen slashed benefits for asylum seekers specifically to dissuade them.

Integration Minister Inger Stojberg also said the Danish government would run advertisements in foreign newspapers aimed at deterring refugees from traveling to Copenhagen.

Denmark received nearly 15,000 asylum seekers last year, almost twice the number from 2013 an increase largely due to an influx of migrants and refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East. 

4. Mediterranean Sea Becomes Mass Grave for Migrants

According to the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, more than 300,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean Sea fleeing war and conflict and in an effort to reach Europe and receive asylum. Other estimates put the figure as high as 500,000.

Last year an estimated 3,500 died or went missing during the journey, a higher figure is expected for 2015 and this year could possibly be the deadliest one yet

The response by European authorities has been mixed. Some countries have pledged to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees but the response by the European Union Foreign Affairs Council in May was further militarization

Rather than address the root causes of mass migration, European leaders believed the solution lied in capturing smugglers who help migrants trying to reach Europe. An approach that will invariably result in the deaths of innocent migrants, that even E.U. leaders admitted to, calling innocent deaths “collateral damage.”

IN DEPTH: Refugee and Migrant Rights

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