CPA Denunciation of Recent Dominican Rulings

Dear CPA Members,

Please read and circulate widely our organization's denunciation of the Dominican government's recent retroactive stripping of the citizenship rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent:

We oppose the Dominican government’s and its defenders’ recourse to the most reactionary forms of state sovereignty as an answer to international criticism and intervention.  These rulings not only retroactively strip the citizenship rights of Dominicans of Haitian descent dating as far back as 1929, they violate international conventions, setting a dangerous precedent for the treatment of migrant workers globally. This is yet another instance of the Dominican government’s failure to acknowledge its own hand in creating the vulnerable population that it now wishes to regularize or expel. To be sure, the Dominican government is not singularly responsible for the intersecting histories of white supremacy, capitalist exploitation, and patriarchy that undergird the Dominican state; the U.S. and Haitian governments, Haitian and Dominican elites, and multinational corporations have invested in market relations that create, rely on, and then dispose of vulnerable Haitian and Dominican workers.

As a transdiscplinary organization that seeks critically to engage and build on Africana, Latin American, and Indigenous philosophies of the Caribbean, we challenge the Dominican state’s reliance on an outmoded conception of state sovereignty that facilitates oppression and exploitation along axes of race, color, class, and gender. We stand with all those who have already strongly condemned the ruling and passage of the law (including several Caribbean governments, the United Nations, civil society organizations, regional and international social justice activists, and the Caribbean Studies Association) and with the Dominican organizations and individuals who have been working for decades for meaningful immigrant, migrant and citizenship rights and call on the international community, and Caribbean activists, intellectuals, artists, and organizations, to work directly with them in opposing violations in the Dominican Republic.