The biggest migration crackdown in the Americas no one is talking about

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Mass deportation programs in the United States have dominated international media headlines, but all the while a much smaller country in the Americas has been reaching much higher numbers than the Trump administration.

The Dominican Republic, a country 30 times smaller than the U.S., deported more than a quarter of a million migrants, mostly Haitians, in 2024. And with a new quota of 10,000 deportations a week in 2025, the crackdowns are only getting more brutal.

Interestingly enough, Venezuelans remain welcome in the D.R., suggesting that racism plays a stong role in nativist dynamics. PWS spoke this week with Simón Rodriguez, a freelance journalist in the Dominican Republic about the most brutal migrant crackdown in the western hemisphere— and the rise of ultra-right anti-migrant vigilante groups who adopt neo-nazi and fascist rhetoric in the country.

Many critics describe the system as “an Apartheid system in the Caribbean.”

You can find Simón’s substack here.

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