Cholera Causes Backlash Against Haitian Immigrants

It's bad enough that Haiti has been suffering a cholera epidemic, on top of the nearly national ruination brought on by last year's earthquake. Now comes word that because of its fear that cholera will arrive with immigrants from Haiti, its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has begun deporting illegal Haitian immigrants.

Relations between the two neighbours have historically been tense, but they improved after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of Haiti in January of last year.

At the time, the Dominican authorities announced they would stop deporting Haitians who entered the country illegally.

But since Monday, soldiers have joined police in setting up new roadblocks, not just on the border but also on key roads leading to Santo Domingo.

The United Nations has estimated that before the earthquake, around 600,000 Haitians lived in the Dominican Republic illegally.

Director of Migration for the Dominican Republic Sigfrido Pared says that number has since reached one million.

The story is a reminder that the plight of undocumented immigrants is hard wherever you go in the world, and that globally we need to work harder to attack the reasons why people become undocumented immigrants, which is largely a lack of good jobs in their own country.