How the United States Shaped the Dominican Republic’s Immigration Enforcement Machine

Summary

Podcast Summary:

It Could Happen Here
Episode: How the United States Shaped the Dominican Republic’s Immigration Enforcement Machine
Date: June 15, 2026
Host(s): James Stout (Cool Zone Media)
Guest: Carlos Perez Polanco (Puerto Rican journalist)

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Episode Overview

This deeply researched and personal episode centers on how the United States has played a pivotal historical and practical role in shaping the Dominican Republic's harsh, often racialized immigration enforcement regime. The conversation intertwines a harrowing recent case—the death of trans detainee Ezra Francis Hollett in Dominican immigration detention—with the broader historical context and policies that set the stage for such tragedies. Through the lens of U.S. intervention, training, and collaboration, the show walks listeners through a history of violence, bureaucratic control, and border-making, highlighting the way the U.S. externalizes its own border violence and repression.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. The Death of Ezra Francis Hollett: A Human Face on Systemic Violence

(02:27–09:27)

• Ezra Francis Hollett died in Haina Immigration Detention Center (DR), June 23, 2025.
  • Hollett, a trans person, had a history of mental illness and required specific medical care (asthma, allergies).
  • Suffered in detention under transphobic conditions, inadequate health care, and extreme overcrowding.
  • Hollett's death (heart attack) received little coverage in English-language media.
• Family and media reports conflicted over timeline, but all painted a picture of neglect and abuse.
• Hollett’s suffering exemplifies broader abuses faced by Haitian immigrants and other marginalized detainees.
• Quote:

  “They died as the direct result of an immigration system that systematically abuses Haitian immigrants and has been historically shaped by the US military and the American border apparatus.”
  (Carlos, 08:24)

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2. How the U.S. Created and Militarized the DR–Haiti Border

(09:27–16:14)

• The DR–Haiti border was long “amorphous,” more a line on maps than a policed barrier.
• In the early 20th century, under the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. seized control of Dominican customs (1905) and established the first regulated border guards (later militarized).
  • U.S. military occupation of both DR and Haiti enforced social and racial divides.
  • U.S.-imposed laws excluded non-white workers, codified anti-Blackness and Dominican national identity as “closer to white.”
  • Quote:

    “There had always been racial prejudice on Hispaniola, but this brought even more, leading to Dominican security forces to arrest people on suspicion that they’d broken this law—even if they hadn’t.”
    (Carlos, 10:43)

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3. Dominican Identity, Anti-Blackness, and the Legacy of Racism

(11:54–16:14)

• Racial identity in the DR: Complex, socially constructed distinctions between “Dominicanness” and “Blackness,” especially in contrast with Haitian identity.
  • Many Dominicans insist on their identity as separate from Blackness.
  • Racial hierarchy reinforces anti-Haitian sentiment and shapes state policy.
• Quote:

  “To the Dominican government, everyone Black is Haitian.”
  (Carlos, 37:37)

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4. Dictatorship, Massacres, and Institutionalized Anti-Haitianism

(16:14–22:47)

• Under dictator Rafael Trujillo (came to power in 1930, trained by US military):

  • Systematic ethnic cleansing, including the 1947 Parsley Massacre (about 20,000 Haitians killed).
  • Introduction of the “cedula” ID system to control and penalize Haitians.
  • Forced Haitian laborers into harsh conditions on sugar plantations—often compared to modern slavery.
  • Structured a society dependent on Haitian labor but denying them rights or security.

• Quote:

  “Many people over the years have called it a ‘modern form of slavery.’ I’ve been to these camps, and what they endure for extremely little pay is horrific.”
  (Carlos, 20:35)

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5. Recent Crises: Haiti’s Instability and Rising Xenophobia

(21:51–24:16; 27:13–32:02)

• Haiti’s devastating earthquake (2010) and 2021 presidential assassination drove mass migration to the DR.

• DR responded to increased migration with legal maneuvers to strip children of immigrants of citizenship (2013 La Sentencia).

  • Retroactively rendered ~245,000 people stateless (most of Haitian descent), causing longstanding generational disenfranchisement.
  • Government's later attempt at reparative law left many still stateless.

• Quote:

  “Imagine if you had to prove that your great-grandparents were citizens in 1929 ... I couldn’t imagine someone who moved throughout their lives ... also having that documentation.”
  (Carlos, 29:25)

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6. Mass Detentions, Deportations, and Extortion in DR Immigration Enforcement

(32:02–40:07)

• DR’s Direction General de Migración (DGM) and multiple law enforcement agencies target Haitians and the stateless, often using racial profiling.
• Enforcement quotas (10,000/week), routine midnight raids, and inhumane detention practices.
• Migrants extorted for bribes to be released or receive food.
• Conditions: Overcrowding, deprivation, and violence in detention centers (noted by Human Rights groups and the State Department).
  • Quote:

    “These numbers are so staggering because all these law enforcement agencies are trying to meet a 10,000 a week quota ... The mechanism to forcefully move people out of the country—it's really incredibly inhumane.”
    (Carlos, 34:25)

  • Quote:

    “To the Dominican government, everyone Black is Haitian.”
    (Carlos, 37:37)

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7. U.S. Role in Shaping and Supporting DR Border Controls

(40:07–47:22; 51:07–53:13)

• U.S. agencies train DR’s border and immigration police (DGM, CESFRONT, etc.).
  • Cooperation includes law enforcement academies, ICE, and CBP.
  • CESFRONT, modeled after US Border Patrol, established in 2006, now patrols a fortified, US-style border wall.
  • The current (2020s) US approach is to externalize border enforcement: train other countries to keep migrants from ever reaching the US.
    • U.S. also funds deportations from other Latin American countries.
  • Quote:

    “The US has been trying to move that traumatic violence further and further from its population for a long time. That’s what strong borders are ... tearing families apart.”
    (James, 45:01)

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8. The Expanding, Damaging Border Wall

(53:13–57:26)

• A new, Mexico–US–style wall now divides DR and Haiti, creating visual scars and environmental harm (notably to mangroves).
• Quote:

  “It definitely looks like a kind of sand-colored scar ... where you have green on both sides and then that sand-color line running through it.”
  (Carlos, 55:24)

• Border towns (Dajabon–Ouanaminthe) heavily depend on each other for trade, but movement is tightly restricted; Haitians only allowed for the day, fully surveilled and encircled by border guards. The wall’s strictness is both real and ‘theater.’

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9. Porous Borders and the Cycle of Deportation

(57:26–60:37)

• Despite militarization, desperate people cross through the border regularly, often relying on smugglers and incurring debt bondage.
• DR recently agreed to accept U.S. deportees (excluding Haitians) under a U.S.-funded initiative.

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10. Reflections: Personal Stories, Systemic Violence, and Global Repercussions

(60:37–71:07)

• The U.S. helped create the very systems in which people like Hollett died; U.S. taxpayers are complicit by funding this global border regime.
• Racist, arbitrary citizenship rules mean people most “culturally Dominican” have fewer rights than foreigners with heritage claims.
  • Quote:

    “This is a person who is a Dominican ... more Dominican than I could ever be. But I’m the one who legally is entitled to citizenship.”
    (Carlos, 66:12)

• The system is “a global project”—not just a U.S. or DR phenomenon; borders become sites of institutionalized exclusion, violence, and the denial of humanity.
• Quote:

  “The nature of what we have done for decades with borders is that it kills people who did nothing wrong. And if we want to get away from the place we’re at now, then this shit needs to be torn down, all of it.”
  (James, 68:26)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “They died as the direct result of an immigration system that systematically abuses Haitian immigrants and has been historically shaped by the US military and the American border apparatus.”
  (Carlos, 08:24)

• “To the Dominican government, everyone Black is Haitian.”
  (Carlos, 37:37)

• “The US has been trying to move that traumatic violence further and further from its population for a long time. That’s what strong borders are ... tearing families apart.”
  (James, 45:01)

• “The border doesn’t protect you, it controls you.”
  — referenced from a CrimeThinc sticker (James, 67:57)

• “I hope that we live long enough to see these border walls become ruins.”
  (Carlos, 62:12)

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Key Timestamps

• Story of Ezra Francis Hollett: 02:27–09:27
• History of U.S. Creation of DR–Haiti Border: 09:27–16:14
• Race & Identity in DR: 11:54–16:14
• Trujillo, Parsley Massacre, Anti-Haitianism: 16:14–22:47
• Modern Migration Crisis, La Sentencia, Statelessness: 27:13–32:02
• Deportations, Enforcement, Extortion: 32:02–40:07
• U.S. Training & Externalization: 40:07–47:22, 51:07–53:13
• Border Wall, Environmental Impact: 53:13–57:26
• Dajabon/Ouanaminthe Border Market: 56:19–57:26
• Porous Borders, Cycle of Deportation: 57:26–60:37
• Final Thoughts, Personal Reflections, Call to Action: 60:37–71:07

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Takeaways

• The Dominican Republic’s immigration system is a direct descendant of U.S. interventionism and border policy, with deep roots in anti-Blackness and economic exploitation.
• Modern efforts, including mass deportations, border militarization, and the targeting of stateless persons, are modeled off—and in many cases directly supported by—the United States.
• The episode’s personal, on-the-ground reporting reveals the human toll and recurring cycles of suffering, as well as the hypocrisy of systems that extract labor and money from migrants while systematically denying them rights.
• The hosts call for recognition that border enforcement as currently practiced must be abolished, not reformed.

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Further Reading

• Border Patrol Nation by Todd Miller
• Empire of Borders by Todd Miller
• More than a Massacre: Racial Violence and Citizenship in the Haitian Dominican Borderlands by Sabine Cadeau

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Speaker Credits

• Carlos Perez Polanco: Main historical and investigative deep-dive; first-hand reporting.
• James Stout: Context, comparative border experience, reflections on U.S. and EU externalization.
• Notable attributions quoted with timestamps above.

Transcript

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[James Stout]

Call Zone Media

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

hello dear listener. My name is Carlos Perez Polanco and I'm a journalist from Puerto Rico.

[James Stout]

I'm here with it's me, James Stout. I'm a journalist who lives in San Diego.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Thank you for being here, James. Today I'm here to talk to you about the Dominican Republic's immigration system and how it has been shaped by the US's immigration system to kind of function as a part of the US border outside of what we would normally consider the US's border. And instead of diving in immediately to that, I want to start this episode by talking a little bit about the tragic death of Ezra Francis Hollett, a trans person from the United States, in immigration detention in the Dominican Republic. I should mention that they use both they them and he him pronouns. However, I'm going to be using they them going forward because that's what the friends and family of Hullett put as their pronouns in the GoFundMe. They were found dead in the Haina Immigration Detention center, the biggest immigration detention center in the Dominican Republic, on June 23, 2025. The GoFundMe, set up by their family to bring their body back to the States, describes them as a compassionate and sensitive person who live with mental health issues and the after effects of childhood trauma. They were 24 and a really good artist from looking at their Instagram. Per the Dominican news show El Informe con Alicia Ortega, who interviewed Hullet's mom, Hullitt traveled to Puerto Rico without their family's knowledge and seemed to be in contact with a social worker here. I found a local Telemundo affiliate here in Puerto Rico that reported that they went missing on September 3rd of 2024. However, the GoFundMe says that they were missing in PR since March of 2025 and Hullet's mom told El Informe that that's when they last spoke. Around that same time, Hollett flew to the Dominican Republic. According to Ellen Forme, shortly after that they were detained inside a construction site where it appears that they were squatting alongside a Dominican man. After being detained by the tourism police, they were passed on to the Direction General Emigracion, or dgm, which does immigration enforcement and manages detention centers, per El Informe. This was about 37 days after they entered the doctor. I want to preface this next section by saying that the doctor isn't particularly kind to trans folks, which I'm sure affected Hollitt's experience during immigration detention. Hollett was initially sent to the mail wing of Hyena not because the doctor is particularly woke and sends people to detention based on their gender identity, but because they were male presenting and didn't have any ID on them. However, once the DGM was was able to identify Hullett, they were transferred to the female wing of Haina. To be honest, quite a bit of the reporting around Hullet in the doctor and here in Puerto Rico is quite transphobic. And the way that these immigration officials talk about Hullet in this kind of mini documentary by Ellen Forme is also quite transphobic. Videos published by Ellen Forma appear to show Hullet curled up on the floor next to dozens of other people who were sleeping in two small rooms inside of immigration detention. Some of the notes and videos uncovered by Ellen Forme appear to show that Hollett was suffering from a mental health crisis throughout the more than two months they were in immigration detention. Hollet's mom told Ellen Forme that Hollet suffered from schizophrenia. They also wrote about having asthma and being allergic to milk. Per Ellen Forme, Hollet's mom confirmed to them that they needed an inhaler and an EpiPen. Although news reports say that DGM provided Hullet with some medicine for the apparent mental health crisis they were going through, I can't find any reporting that says that they ever got an inhaler or an EpiPen that they needed. A coroner's report found that they died from a heart attack. According to Noticia Sin, a national news website there, her information obtained by the Inter American Commission of Human Rights. At least four facilities are being used as immigration detention centers present overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, deficient food and lack of access to health care. The same report states that a newborn died in Haina on November 14th of last year. Damn. People I've spoken to who've been detained in Haina over the years have described the conditions there as horrific, particularly as the Dominican government has ramped up the deportation efforts massively against the country's Haitian population. Detention centers are routinely overcrowded and people have very little access to food or water for days, from what they tell me. Per the people I've spoken to, detainees are sometimes beaten or extorted by guards to be able to call their families to get their documents or for food. And I talk a little bit more about this later on in the episode. But the reason that I started with Hallet's story is twofold. First, because their death was significantly undercovered by English language media. And second, because they died as the direct result of an immigration system that systematically abuses Haitian immigrants and has been historically shaped by the US military and the American border apparatus. While they're organized in different ways within the law enforcement structures of their respective countries. There are a lot of similarities between the DGM and ICE in the United States, particularly in their tactics and how they've terrorized immigrant communities. However, before diving into the current immigration situation in the Dominican Republic and how a lot of it has come as a result of collaboration with American immigration enforcement, I want to give some historical context about how, in a very real way, the United States created the Dominican Haiti border. The Dominican Republic was originally a Spanish colony. Haiti was originally a French colony. Haiti became independent, then invaded the Dominican Republic, then they fought them back to become independent themselves. But throughout all of that time, the Dominican Haiti border was in amorphous space, not the kind of quote unquote hard border that it is today. There had been agreements on where the border was supposed to be. People roughly knew where that border was supposed to be on a map and on the earth, if they lived near that area. However, it was just kind of essentially an imaginary line that ran along the 240 miles of land that make up the border between the two countries. However, in 1905, the US established a Customs receivership over the Dominican Republic to force the Caribbean nation to pay its foreign debts and ostensibly protect it from a possible European invasion. Which is a classic Monroe Doctrine move, of course.

[James Stout]

Yeah, Many such cases. Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

This agreement was officially ratified for a 1907 convention and created the Dominican Border Guard to police the frontier between the two countries and make sure that all duties were collected from commerce and people crossing the border. According to a journal article titled Haitians Magic and Money Raza and Society in the Haitian Dominican Borderlands by Lauren Derby, While these weren't the first border guards, they were essential to turning the borderlands into the border as it exists today, one of the most highly regulated and police borders in the Western Hemisphere. And I should also say that at some points throughout Dominican history, the military patrolled the border. Per a document from the Marines titled Marines in The Dominican Republic, 1916-1924, North Americans were part of the Dominican Frontier Guard that regulated this border. Some would later go on to become part of the Guardian Nacional Dominicana, which was created by the American military government that controlled the Dr. Between 1916 and 1924. In 1921, the GND turned into the Policia Nacional Dominicana, which also stationed people at the border at that time. For more context, the American government was occupying Haiti at more or less the same time from 1915 to 1934. This period of American occupation of La Espanola greatly defined the relationship that both countries would have with each other. Going forward, as well as both countries military and law enforcement. The military occupation of the Dominican Republic also led to laws that prevented the entry of workers who weren't white unless they came through official border crossings and paid for temporary residence permits. This is according to the book More than a Racial Violence and Citizenship in the Haitian Dominican Borderlands by Sabine Cadeau. While there had always been racial prejudice on Hispaniola, this brought even more, leading to Dominican security forces to arrest people on suspicion that they'd broken this law even if they hadn't. And it was later used to strip Dominicans of their citizenship. It also strengthened the idea of quote, unquote Dominicanidad as something closer to being white and European, a sentiment that continues to this day and in some ways is even stronger now than it was then.

[James Stout]

What's entering my mind is, I think it was a tweet that said they're coming out with a new version of white that doesn't include you. Whiteness as a liminal concept is something that can be hard for people from the US to understand. But yeah, I've heard this directly elucidated to me many times that Dominicanness and blackness are distinct.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely.

[James Stout]

Or the Haitian people are black, which obviously, as someone who's, who's lived in the UK and the United States is difficult for me to understand. But like all of these things are socially constructed. It doesn't mean they're not real. It just means that people made them, people can move them.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. I have also had people to my face say that the Dominican identity is completely separate from blackness, you know, and as someone who has lived in Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States or owned by it, that also to me was very, very strange. And I say this as someone who. Whose mother is Dominican. Right. So I was just kind of like stunned when the first time that I heard it, and sometimes it's called. Is how it's being marketed by some people in the current day. Although I will say if you've seen the. The video of the. The comedian, I think saying, I know black, I Dominican. That's a. I have pretty much witnessed something exactly like that said completely seriously several times throughout my life.

[James Stout]

Yeah. It doesn't mean that like Dominican people coming to the US will not encounter anti blackness because they will.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

[James Stout]

It's just that, that it also doesn't mean that on returning to Dominican Republic, they cannot slot into a different structure which puts them above Haitian people.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a very, It's a very interesting Topic how those kind of identities are presented in separate ways depending on. Yeah, on where you live for. Because for me, for example, if I went to the U.S. most people would say that I'm brown, but here in Puerto Rico, I'm kind of very explicitly a white person here, you know?

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's, it's. So it's such a short flight as well. Like that flight from Miami to Dominican where if you go Punta Cana or whatever, the airport there, that's like out of Santo Domingo. And so much change in this. Right. Like you can, you can literally get on that plane as someone who isn't considered to be black and then get off that and be treated by American law enforcement like you are. Yeah, within like a one hour flight. And. Yeah, it's just this is, this is like the nature of creating hierarchies. Right. They can shift to include people and shift to exclude people too.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely, absolutely. So I know I'm speaking to the choir about this, but this kind of definition of borders and national identity are an essential part of the nation state and immigration enforcement. Because if you don't have an established border, it's very hard to define the in group that belongs inside of the nation and that group that doesn't who can then be detained, penalized and deported for crossing that imaginary line in the earth. These kinds of steps by the US military government were essential to creating this idea that Dominicans and Haitians are two completely different people. However, to be clear, it's not that this sentiment didn't exist beforehand. In particular, the Dominican elite hated Haitians a lot for the invasion of Dr. By Haiti. That sentiment existed in, in the borderlands. But a lot of those people were bilingual, which is very different from kind of people inside of the metropole who saw themselves as kind of the, this one identity versus along the borderlines, which is usually what happens. Right. There is a kind of melding identities in ways that isn't seen anywhere else.

[James Stout]

Yeah, this is the same where I live. Right. Like San Diego, Tijuana is effectively like it's not one large city. There are important and very, very, very real differences. But like in many ways, one community. Right. Like so many of our community members. Like I have students at the community college who cross every day. I've had students when I've taught high school classes who crossed every day. Like I've got friends who couldn't make rent work in California and so they go to Tijuana. And obviously those people speak two languages or both languages at the same time. I think that's just the nature of living in the borderlands.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. So following the US's exit from the Dominican Republic, dictator Rafael Trujillo came to power in 1930. He was trained by the US military and eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier General of the pnd, then militarized it. And as the word dictator implies, he was not a good guy. Under him, the already burgeoning and existent anti Haitian sentiment essentially exploded. He introduced the cedula, a national identification document for all adult men. So Haitians had to pay for the cedula and a foreign residency permit, essentially ending the binational lifestyle of communities on the border. According to more than a massacre. If the US started the border, then Trujillo marked it as a sign of utter violence by ordering his troops to ethnically cleanse the Dominican border of Haitians in October of 1947. This was known as the Parsley Massacre. And estimates of people killed vary, but the most common number I've seen used is roughly 20,000 Haitians killed over the course of about a week to two weeks. And this massacre of course, came about as a way for him to define the the border by stripping Haitians of, of that land because they were. It was mostly done inside of the Dominican side of the Dr. Haiti border. Yeah, it's called the Parsley Massacre because soldiers reportedly recognize Haitians by their inability to pronounce parsley in Spanish, Perej. However, experts think that this was just a myth, another way to separate Haitians from Dominicans according to more than a massacre. Also, as a not so fun fact, a lot of the violence took place along the Massacre river, which a lot of people think is called that because of the 1947 massacre. But from the various Spanish language sources I've read, they all essentially say that this isn't true, that it was. It's called the Massacre river because of the frequent violence that took place there between Spanish colonizers and French buccaneers in the 18th century. And this is according to an article by Simon Rodriguez in NACLA titled Dominican Republic and Haiti at the Crossroads of the Massacre River. The Dominican immigration agency, the dgm, was also established by Trujillo just two years after the Parsley Massacre. Not only were they essential to deporting Haitians during Trujillo's reign, but they also forced the Haitian population into the sugar producing regions of the country. And because he couldn't deploy overt state violence there in the same way that he did along the border, they came up with a new plan. Any Haitian immigrant detained in the area would just be brought back to whatever sugar plantation would pay their immigration taxes, essentially creating these zones, which still very much exist to this day, of Haitians living in and around these sugar plantations that they also work at. I should say that this wasn't a codified policy, but that it coexisted with other tactics throughout the years.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

The Trujillo government also instituted a policy that made all Haitians who owned land or businesses to not be able to work outside of the sugar producing regions. According to a journal article titled A Veil of Legality by Amelia Hinson. I visited some of these sugar plantations in 2023, and many of the Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent who live there are descendants of the ones Trujillo pushed into the region. While anti Haitianism already existed before Trujillo, he cemented it into the political structures of the Dominican Republic to the point that it still continues incredibly strong into the modern day. About 51% of Dominicans believe that immigration harms the country. Per a 2024 poll by the polling firm Latino Barometro, Many Haitians come to the Dominican Republic seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Much like immigrants in the US and similarly to the US Getting a visa or becoming a citizen for them is extremely difficult. This isn't to say that there aren't a lot of Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic. And I should also say that they are by far the largest immigrant group in the country, which makes sense because they're next door neighbors.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

The construction and the sugar cutting industry are completely dependent on cheap Haitian labor. The sugar cutting industry is heavily reliant on this labor, a lot of which is done by undocumented immigrants. Many people over the years have called it a quote, unquote, modern form of slavery. I've been to these camps and what they endure for extremely little pay is horrific. I went there at the tail end of 2023. And while there are some places set up by. By the companies that own those sugar producing regions that are. They're like, they're called Bate inside of the sugar cane mazes. Some of the Batellas have like houses made out of cement with electricity, and some are completely degraded, made from wood that's rotting and they have no access to running water.

[James Stout]

Jesus.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Or electricity. There have been over the years attempts by both human rights groups and the companies that own those regions. It wasn't benevolently is my opinion on it.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

But more because of the pressure that they've received over the years to move these people into Somewhat better conditions.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

In thinkfully, for some of them, they have. For others, they have not. A lot of the Haitian migration in the last decades has come after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Javanel Moise. The two events, as well as other crises, have caused people in Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, to experience significant violence and hunger crises. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced out of their homes and left the country over the last decade. Per the Migration Policy Institute. For many, the natural path of migration out of Port au Prince is towards the border and towards the Dominican Republic. And as we've seen, a lot of those Haitian migrants have also tried to go into the US Through Latin America. And I mean, not to say that they exclusively go there, of course, but they try to go wherever they're able to go.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I wrote a piece for NBC. God, when you could still write things critical of the Biden administration at NBC. And like, in 2021, right, when the United States Embassy in Haiti had a picture of Biden, it was translated into Creole, Right? But it was like, essentially, do not come, like, we'll turn you around, send you back like this. This is the guy who'd run, you know, like, months before on a kindness where Trump had done cruelty. I remember, like, right around that time, 2021. So there was a large number of migrants, of course, who had been stuck in Tijuana because of Title 42. They tried to cross, and they kept getting bounced back, right? And so I would cross to talk to them. They moved to, like, right by where the PED west pedestrian crossing is now. And they were camping there in the square. Literally. You go over the border bridge that

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

goes over the road.

[James Stout]

You pop out your first step on, like, on the ground. The bridge is probably in Mexico at some point, but they're right there. I remember speaking to Haitian folks there about, like, they had genuinely hoped for a little bit better from the Biden administration, which, of course, they didn't get. Very common pathway is to Brazil to do underpaid construction work for the Rio Olympics. And then finding yourself without work, without much of a chance at citizenship or permanency, deciding to come north. That was a very common pathway at the time, too.

[George Taveras]

This is George Taveras and Sam Taggart from Stratiolab. Okay, Picture it. Your apartment after a Saturday workout. The gym bag, the couch, maybe even the car, mi amor. It's a full novella of odors and not the glamorous kind.

[Febreze Advertiser]

That's where Febreze comes in Boost, spray, spritz, plug or clip. It doesn't just mask odors, it fights them. Honey.

[George Taveras]

Want long lasting scent you can control? Try Febreze Plug Scent Booster today. With the adjustable intensity dial, you can control the scent to match your mood. Plus, thanks to its Fade Defy technology, your home stays first day fresh for up to 50 days.

[Febreze Advertiser]

Need a quick car rescue? Clip a Febreze car vent clip and map your ride to freshness. And don't forget the fabric refresher. While you can't cram that cushion in the washer, you can top off every pill of fluff with a spritz of

[George Taveras]

fabric refresher because home should smell like you. Fabulous. Fresh, Unforgettable Febreze is a proud sponsor

[Febreze Advertiser]

of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy and unwavering commitment to equality.

[George Taveras]

You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact awards podcast, available June 1 on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere podcasts

[Karen and Georgia]

are heard Hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My Favorite Murder.

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

[Karen and Georgia]

Want the full story?

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Take a listen.

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

She starts dating Howard Hughes and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamar and Billie Jean King.

[Karen and Georgia]

Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

[James Stout]

Goodbye.

[Matt Altmix]

This is Matt Altmix from How To Money and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. I'm talking flights, phone plans, groceries, restaurants. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next ride share? Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride. I did this the last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. Guess who came out on top? Lyft Comparing rideshare prices will help you to save money every time you ride. Save money. Check Lyft.

[Karen and Georgia]

This is Lala Kent from Untraditionally. Lala, Ready for a hot take? One thing the math really ain't mathing on lately is international travel. Like, why sit on a plane for 14 hours to get to Lake Como when you could be having the time of your life at Caesars Republic in beautiful Lake Tahoe. All the splendor of Lake Como without all the low vibe nonsense that comes with international travel. No long flights, no passport hassles and no jet lag. Caesars Republic, Lake Tahoe has it all. Incredible dining, amazing entertainment, gaming, fun on the lake and and more. It's right in your backyard. Caesars Republic, Lake Tahoe. Book today.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

So about 200,000 displaced Haitians are believed to have moved to the doctor in the months after the earthquakes, according to the International Organization for Migration. And after that flow of migrants to the doctor and the rising tide of anti Haitianism which had been building for a very long time. In 2013, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic ruled that people born in the Dominican Republic to immigrant parents without a regularized migration status had never been entitled to Dominican citizenship. This ruling is called LA the Judgment. What this essentially did was that if you do not have at least one parent who is a Dominican citizen, then you do not have Dominican citizenship. In the US we have birthright citizenship or ju soli, which means that if you're born on this land or inside the US you are an American citizen. This of course applies almost everywhere except certain colonies like American Samoa. So essentially in the Dominican Republic, if one of your parents was not Dominican, you did not have citizenship. The thing about judicial decisions is that they typically only go forward in time. But what was particularly evil about La Sentencia was that it applied retroactively to 1929. And I want listeners to sit with that for a second. Even if it applied just going forward, it would be a horrible thing. But going back nearly a hundred years is just horrendous because what the ruling caused was a chain reaction that stripped entire families of their citizenship. Because if your grandparents weren't citizens, then neither was your dad. If your mom wasn't a citizen, then, then neither are you. Of course, this ruling also affected anyone who did legally still have citizenship but didn't have the documentation going back that far to prove it if the government came knocking. So yeah, essentially imagine if you had to prove that your great grandparents were citizens in 1929. I, yeah, I mean, I don't think I personally would have that documentation for

[James Stout]

my great grandparents, especially living like in the lower 48 in the US it's just more likely that one might have documentation of one's great grandparents and living in parts of the doctor but yeah,

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

essentially for me it would be incredibly hard to have that documentation for my great grandparents. I couldn't imagine someone who has moved throughout their, their lives inside of the Dominican Republic to also have that documentation. And then there's also the fact that because of. Of the anti Haitianism that was there, a lot of people who did or were supposed to legally still have citizenship were rolled up in the people whose citizenship this law took away. In total, the decision impacted about 245,000 Dominicans, of which 211,000 were Dominicans of Haitian descent, according to the center for Migration Studies. I of course say Dominicans because they were, legally speaking, Dominicans at the time that the sentencia took place, but now they have been stripped of that citizenship. The Dominican government tried to backtrack this decision just a year later after a lot of international criticism and provide a path to the stateless, but the damage was done. In 2023, it's estimated that as many as 130,000 people remain stateless per CMS. There is no law that provides a path to citizenship for the children of the stateless. So Even after this 2014 law that tried to make people back into citizens or provide a pathway to citizenship, if you have a child, that child was not going to have citizenship.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Because so many people were affected by it. And a lot of the slowness of the government, the ways that government doesn't work, you have this wave of denationalizations. And because of a lot of the problems of the government, some people who should have had that pathway to citizenship provided to them still don't have it.

[James Stout]

Right. It's going to be so much harder to get those people back. And like, understandably, it's going to be very hard to get those people to engage with the state in any way.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely.

[James Stout]

Because why the fuck would you like it just told you like the you that you don't belong. Right. Like, this state is a danger to those people.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

And of course, not to mention that the anti Haitian sentiment that the government has, you know, that maybe the government at the top decided to go back, but that anti Haitian sentiment is still there from the top down, of course.

[James Stout]

So, yeah, yeah, it takes a long time to get over something like what happened under Trujillo. Right. Like the massacre and the ongoing, like the state being used as a weapon against you. Like, yeah. People aren't gonna just be like, okay, well this is a benevolent entity now. Let me go, let me go chat with them, tell them where I live and make sure they got all my information up to date. Like, it's just. It takes a long time to rebuild that trust.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely. So at the same time that this was happening, the Dominican government created a sprawling immigration enforcement apparatus that has systemically punished Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent that they made stateless. These numbers are honestly quite, quite horrifying. In 2025, the DGM registered 379,553 deportations, according to their self published numbers. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean 379,553 people were removed from the country because of possible double or triple counting if a person crossed the border more than once and were detained, then deported. But even if you cut that figure in half or in freeze, that still is a staggering amount of people's lives who have been touched and affected by this deportation apparatus. To give some more recent numbers, In May of 2026, the DGM said that they deported 35,305 migrants according to their own numbers. And the thing about the Dominican Republic is that essentially every law enforcement agency does immigration enforcement. The great majority of those migrants deported in May were detained by the DGM, the Direction General de Migration. About 5,800 were detained by the Dominican army and about 2,300 by this specialized land Border Security Corps, which is known as CES Fronte. They essentially patrol the national border with Haiti. And about 1,300 of those people were detained by the national police. These numbers are so staggering because all of these law enforcement agencies are trying to meet a 10,000 a week quota that President Luis Avenader set for the Dominican government in 2024 and continues to follow. This number to me is really, really staggering and it's kind of horrific because you read it on paper and it's hard to really understand the immensity of this mechanism to forcefully move people out of the country. And as well as all of the law enforcement work and immigration enforcement work that goes into detaining those people in the first place, then sending them to immigration centers and then deporting them outside of the Dominican Republic. And the way that that usually happens is that they are loaded into these trucks, which are converted horse trucks. Sometimes they're like the little short ones and sometimes they're the very long ones that you see to move pallets of stuff that have this cage built onto the back and people are just stuffed to the brim inside of there. It's really incredibly inhumane.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Damn, that's rough.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

So migrants are routinely extorted while in immigration detention, per an anonymous source that spoke with Listindiario, a national paper in the Dr. That detainees are routinely hit up for bribes during immigration raids and during their detention, per the article, guards In Haina, the largest immigration detention center in the Dr. Were charging about 200 and $270 to be freed, which might not seem like an insurmountable amount of money in the US but it's about half of the average monthly salary in the doctor and these migrants are making much, much less than that.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

The same report says that guards sometimes charge migrants families so detainees can get food while detained. So much of the rhetoric that Abenader and other Dominican officials use to justify their actions, especially in recent years, is that immigration contributes to the destabilization of their society. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Haitian immigrants are just trying to live in peace and escape the violence or crisis that they're facing in their home countries. And like I said earlier, a lot of industries in the Dr. Rely on cheap patient labor. And I would be remiss to mention that a lot of the people that the Dominican Republic's immigration enforcement are deporting are people that the Dominican Republic made stateless in the first place. So they essentially created this gigantic group of people that they are now deporting. Right. It's, it's the way that, yeah, the, the nation state operates to kind of push people, to push people that it considers undesirable out of that nation's borders. Get it?

[James Stout]

This is like Ben Anderson, right, when he's writing about nations, says no nation can be coterminous with all of humanity. And then when we combine the nation with the state, that's when we get if no nation can be coterminous with all humanity and the state is policing who and is not, is, it's not part of the nation and expelling those that are not. Like, that's when we get what we see here, right? And what we see here in the US

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

we talked about this a little bit earlier, but whenever I talk to Haitians or Dominicans of Haitian descent about immigration enforcement in their country, they pretty much tell me the same thing. To the Dominican government, everyone black is Haitian. And we talked about this and how the conception of Dominicanidad has become separate from the way that they view Haitians as black.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Many civil society and human rights organizations have documented how the DGM uses racial profiling as a justification to detain pretty much whoever they want. This got so bad that in 2022, the American state Department issued a travel warning for quote, unquote, darker skinned Americans about the risks to, of being swept up in the country's immigration crackdown. And to me at the time, having written about that, it's kind of Incredible. To see an American agency be like, hey, the racism this country is so bad. You should be on the lookout.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah. Like you might not want to go.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Exactly. Yeah.

[James Stout]

That's wild.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. So the DGM routinely performs midnight immigration raids on Haitian communities. Break down their doors and drag people kicking and screaming from their beds, then load them up on the repurposed cattle trucks and horse trucks that I was talking about earlier. There are usually about 30 or so people in those immigration trucks, the small ones pushed up against the metal bars. And I've seen this personally at the Dr. Haiti border where they're taken from immigration detention centers and then dropped off and essentially forced to walk into the Haiti. When I was at the border in 2023, the ones I saw and was able to speak to had grabbed everything that they could as they were getting detained because they knew that it was possible they could never make it back. Some of these people included mothers carrying small children and babies. One worker who I spoke with worked in construction, and he claimed that he was being deported because his boss had called immigration enforcement on them because they were talking about getting paid more.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Tailor soulless time with undocumented labor, sadly.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely. And this is big in the sugar cane cutting regions as well, or at least it used to be.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

And it's a kind of a recurring system because, you know, they get deported, but there's not really any. Any work or safety in some cases in Haiti, so they're forced to come back over the border to do the same job.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Many Haitians live in fear, hiding from immigration authorities as much as they can while trying to work to feed their families. It's especially bad for pregnant mothers who can't go to hospitals for fear of being swept up by immigration raids. There have been several women who were deported very quickly after being discharged, according to a report by the Guardian. And I've personally seen a pregnant mother with a small child forced across the Dr. Haiti border after being dumped there by DGM, similar to how the American government essentially created the Dominican Haiti border and shaped its border guard in the early 1900s. They also routinely provide training for several law enforcement agencies who enforce the Dominican immigration laws. For example, agencies from the Dominican Republic routinely receive training from International Law Enforcement Academies, which are international police academies administered by the U.S. state Department, where U.S. law enforcement trained police and other law enforcement agencies from other countries. A training schedule from 2024 I found showed that the Dominican Republic participated in nine sessions throughout the years with agencies like ICE and CBP. However, when it comes to being trained by the US no one beats the Cuerpo Especializado de Seguridad Fronteriza Terrestre, known as CES Front, or the Specialized Land Border Security Corps. They are in charge of securing and quote, unquote, protecting the Dominican border with Haiti. They are an arm of the military and were created in 2006. That same year, unidentified quote, unquote. U.S. experts reported that there were a, quote, series of weaknesses that will lead to all kinds of illicit activities along the border, According to a 2006 article from Dominican Today. Per the same article, the military patrolled the area beforehand, but the study revealed the lack of in bad shape of the Dominican Army's facilities, the lack of training, logistics, weapons, vehicles, garments, as well as low wages and bad nutrition for these, these soldiers. And I should say that's a quote from the Dominican Today's article. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the border before I explain it later on in more detail. But a lot of the border that I've been to between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is along the Massacre river where part of the Parsley massacre happened. And you essentially have this very big cement and iron and steel border wall going up that has completely separated this contiguous piece of land where people were once upon a time over a hundred years ago, able to more or less walk between and walk over without much restriction at all. And you know, the place where they've built the barrier, this was not like what, you know, whenever someone from Puerto Rico, whenever someone talks to me about the US Border, I'm imagining the big iron wall throughout the desert. This was not that. This was kind of very lush green mangroves. They used to be one big forest, but now they created a bayed strip of land that now separates that forest that once was one and then put the border wall there. So a lot of this modern history of collaboration between the US and the doctor Immigration enforcement is recorded in Todd Miller's Border Patrol Nation, An Empire of Borders, both of which I recommend everyone go read. Yeah, Miller is great.

[James Stout]

Yeah, Miller's books are fantastic. I know we both really enjoy them, but.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. A real resource for anyone looking to understand the border and its history and, like, how we got to this situation. Wasn't hard to see it coming, actually.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. And a lot of Border Patrol Nation is from the early 2010s too, so it was really kind of prescient in many ways.

[James Stout]

Yeah, very much so. Like, I remember, I remember reading that book and then, like thinking about it a lot as I was in the Dominican Republic. And even when I was in Panama last year, like, the Biden administration, right, Was. Was financing deportations from Panama of people who had just crossed a Darian Gap, like, chiefly to Colombia, almost entirely Colombian young men. I literally watched these guys get, like. I watched a family who I'd known from the jungle, right? And then I. And then we reconnected in Lajas Blancas, which is a reception center. Reception center is a pretty euphemistic term there. It's not a great place to be. I think it's closed now, actually. But they. They would come and call out names and was like, huh, what's going on? Like, what's. Maybe we're getting taken somewhere. Like, maybe this is. They want to check our passports and then just start loading men into same thing. Got, like, a flatbed truck. And I remember one guy, like, having to give his baby to his wife. And I was there, and he was like, hey, what are they doing? And I was like, I don't know.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Men.

[James Stout]

Like, I. I don't know that some guy was like, this is how they deport people. It was a very.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Wow.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's horrible. And then his wife was just, like, standing there next to me, and, like, I was horrible. Like, I put my arm around her and she was just sobbing. And of course, like. Like, separated from her partner and the father of her child. But, yeah, it's rough to think that then I went home and did my work and paid my taxes and. And paid my little share of that family getting torn apart. But, yeah, that was a. That was blue team. That. That wasn't a Trump thing. Like, this is. The US has been trying to move that traumatic violence further and further from its population for a long time. That's what strong borders are, right? Strong borders of violence. Strong borders are tearing families apart. Strong borders are people dying. And there is an understanding shared by both parties that Americans don't like seeing dead people. They don't like seeing families torn apart, as we've seen in the last few years. Couple years. And so they have sought to move that violence further away from the Metropole rather than stopping doing the violence.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. And Miller talks a lot about this in his book. Right. Where part of the US's internal migration policy as it relates to foreign policy is that if you can stop migrants from coming into the US at another border, that means that they won't be able to reach their border. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

An academic who described it to Todd Miller as kind of border sets in ways that the borders Go there?

[James Stout]

Yeah, like clusters or something, right?

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Essence.

[James Stout]

Oh, it's a dude who, he's like a veteran and he was like in Afghanistan and saw border patrol out there. I was like, what the fuck?

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So the way that, that veteran, that person explains it is that these borders are created in such a way to keep people from flowing into the United States, but able for people inside of the United States to more very easily leave them and pass through them. Right. So for example, let's say a migrant from Haiti wanted to go into the US they would be faced with an incredibly uphill battle of passing several borders. It might be the border from Haiti into the Dominican Republic, then into Puerto Rico, or it might be Haiti to some Latin American countries, then at several Central American countries, and then onto the U.S. southern border. Right?

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

But versus, let's say if I wanted to go to Haiti, it would be pretty incredibly easy for me to go there. Right. And this is, you know what we see.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

The way that these, this mechanism is constructed for the in group to be able to move freely around the world in the out group to have an incredibly hard time actually coming into the

[James Stout]

US My friend Erica from Alotrolado likes to say we already have open borders. We already have no borders. Just only for some people.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, exactly. And of course I'd be remiss not to mention that capital flows very easily through borders as if they do not exist.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Because they don't for money.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah.

[George Taveras]

This is George Taveras and Sam Taggart from Stradiolab. Okay, Picture it. Your apartment after a Saturday workout. The gym bag, the couch, maybe even the car. Mi amor. It's a full novella of odors and not the glamorous kind.

[Febreze Advertiser]

That's where Febreze comes in. Boost, spray, spritz, plug or clip. It doesn't just mask odors, it fights them. Honey.

[George Taveras]

Want long lasting scent you can control? Try Febreze Plug scent booster today. With the adjustable intensity dial, you can control the scent to match your mood. Plus, thanks to to its fade defy technology, Your home stays first day fresh for up to 50 days.

[Febreze Advertiser]

Need a quick car rescue? Clip a Febreze car vent clip and map your ride to freshness. And don't forget the fabric refresher. While you can't cram that cushion in the washer, you can top off every pillow fluff with a spritz of fabric refresher.

[George Taveras]

Because home should smell like you. Fabulous. Fresh, unforgettable.

[Febreze Advertiser]

Febreze is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to each equality you won't

[George Taveras]

want to miss the Elton John Impact awards podcast, available June 1 on the iHeartRadio app. And everywhere podcasts are heard Hi, it's

[Karen and Georgia]

Karen and Georgia from My favorite Murder.

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ionic 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamar.

[Karen and Georgia]

Want the full story?

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

Take a listen. She starts dating Howard Hughes and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamar and Billie Jean King.

[Karen and Georgia]

Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

[Matt Altmix]

Goodbye this is Matt Altmix from How to Money and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. I'm talking flights, phone plans, groceries, restaurants. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next ride share Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride. I did this the last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. Guess who came out on top? Lyft Comparing rideshare prices will help you to save money every time you ride. Save money. Check Lyft.

[Karen and Georgia]

This is Lala Kent from Untraditionally. Lala ready for a hot take? One thing the math really ain't mathing on lately is international travel. Like, why sit on a plane for 14 hours to get to Lake Como when you could be having the time of your life at Caesars Republic in beautiful Lake Tahoe? All the splendor of Lake Como without all the low vibe nonsense that comes with international travel. No long flights, no passport hassles and no jet lag. Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe has it all. Incredible dining, amazing entertainment, gaming, fun on the lake and and more. It's right in your backyard. Caesars Republic Lake Tahoe Book Today.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

As Miller lays out in Empire of borders post 9 11, the US adopted a very strong policy of considering terrorism against American interest quote over there needing to be regarded in the same way as terrorism over here. Right? And of course terrorism the way that the US Government sees it is probably extremely different from the way that you and I see it. James yes, so this ideology essentially pushed the American border everywhere because everything that the US didn't agree with was a threat to its interest. This is essentially kind of the same reasoning as the Monroe Doctrine and the American empire just massaged it for the modern world. In some ways, this is why international collaboration between American immigration enforcement and border security agencies has skyrocketed since the dawn of the millenn to the point that CBP agents have traveled around the world to show countries how to enforce their country's borders so that people inside of those countries wanting to leave and reach the United States borders are never able to do. So we talked a little bit about this. I can't remember if it was on air or off air about how Bavino did that in Honduras.

[James Stout]

Yeah, that's right. That was something I found recently. I was reading some document about this board of externalization and he's one of the people interviewed. Yeah, it's like when he was in bortac.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Right.

[James Stout]

Bavino was a member of Bortech and they were going out on patrol with. I guess, I don't know Honduras has border patrol or I don't quite know what the structure they're under is, but they were going on patrol with him. And then like the Borchak guys are armed and running around, but not technically not the ones making arrests. Yeah, like, like you can read this in the Miller books, but this is a, a thing that the US does all over the world.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. And Miller traveled to a lot of countries where people were agents of their country's border security apparatus or Lawrence or an agency were like. Yeah, I've been trained by the U.S. of course.

[James Stout]

Yeah, like talking about the, like the Kybilis. Right, like in. Yeah, like. Anyway, everyone should read the book. I'm not going to recount the book.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

It's a good book. So if you look at the border enforcement or immigration agencies around the world, you'll find that they may look like the United States because they are modeling themselves off of the trainers that train them or help shape their creation. CES Front takes after its border patrol big brother in many ways. But one of the most salient is in the wall that they patrol. As I mentioned a little bit earlier, in 2022 the Dominican Republic started construction of a Mexico US style border wall that if it's finished, would span almost half of the border with Haiti. When the project is completed, it will be the second longest border wall in the Americas. The first being the Mexico US wall. It is supposed to be high tech, containing a series of cameras, radars and drones that are supposed to run the length of the wall. This wall, like many other border walls, has done intense environmental damage along the course of the border, particularly to the mangroves that run along the border where the wall is being built. In 2023, I visited Dahabong, a town in the northern section of Dr. Haiti border, to report on the Dominican Republic's immigration enforcement apparatus. For myself, Dahabong is where the sesfront has a very important base. And as I mentioned earlier, it's a place where a lot of the violence of the parsley massacre took place. Cesfront's base in the habong is painted in a beige brown camouflage pattern that makes it stick out like a sore thumb against the green forest background where it's station. However, it does blend in to that strip of land where they've cut out to make the border wall, you know? Yeah. In many ways, the government tries to reshape the land in nature to fit its image.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's kind of the same here. Like, I was in a desert this weekend, and I was like, climbing up in some mountains there, and you can look down at the border wall, and it's like a. It's like a scar across the landscape. You can for miles. As far as you can see it, it looks like somebody sliced through this. In this case, this pristine desert landscape. Right. And yeah, I can see it being the only worse in these areas where, like, it's so lush and green.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. From aerial drone images that I've seen of the border, it definitely looks like a kind of sand colored scar, Especially in the Dahabong area, where you have green on both sides and then that sand color line running through it.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

So the Dahabon border crossing is extremely close to sesfront's base there. When I was there, the border between the two countries was officially closed because of a dispute over the canalization of the Massacre river. Haitians needed the water for agriculture along the border, But Dominican officials said that the canalization would take water away from their own purposes. A couple weeks after I was there, they opened up the border again, which was extremely necessary because border towns like Dajabong and Guanamint, which is the town on the Haitian side, rely on each other a lot for trade. And this has been that way since time immemorial in that region. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

The binational market in Da Bong is pretty much the only place where Haitians are legally allowed to enter, but they have to leave the same day they came in. It's essentially this giant market, and there is a steel wall that runs along the outer perimeter of it, which is where you have sesfront border guards. So if you pass through the border crossing, you do the whole immigration check, you're able to go into the market, and you could essentially do a circle around it. So you're able to go into the market and then you leave the back way, which connects to another border crossing.

[James Stout]

Oh, just. So you're like you're in a bubble.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, essentially.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Okay.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, essentially.

[James Stout]

That's crazy. They're like going that hard to be like, we want your money, we just don't want you.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Exactly, Exactly. Yeah. And it's really the. It really shows the hypocrisy of these. These border systems because, you know, they're.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

These two towns are extremely reliant on one another, but the countries that represent both towns are like, no, we need to enforce this. This border. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

So, yeah, this. This market in the habong is where a lot of people on the Haiti side of the border are able to buy and sell a lot of stuff they wouldn't have otherwise have access to. Sure. So the bridge that runs over the massacre river that connects Dahabong to Unamint is within feet of the national market. And like I mentioned, all encircled by Sasfonse guards. Any Haitian who would try to pass that fence without going past the official checkpoint would likely be detained and deported immediately if they're caught by the border guards. And as we know, even if a border presents itself as extremely rigid, a lot of it is for show, at least in my experience with the Dr. Haiti border. Right. A lot of it is theater security. Theater.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. So when I was there, I spent the better part of my time there just watching DGM trucks bring dozens of people to the border, Then watched as CIS front guards herded them out of the Dominican Republic.

[James Stout]

Jesus.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. It was incredibly inhumane and heartbreaking. I, yeah. Remember taking this picture of a little girl with a suitcase who was just. And this wasn't a person being deported by the trucks, but this was a Haitian person who was leaving Of a little girl just waiting for her dad with a suitcase.

[James Stout]

Jesus.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

I don't know. That image really sticks in my mind.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. So the thing about the border, as I mentioned earlier, even if it seems to be incredibly hard, it's still porous in several places. When I was in the Bateyas, in the sugar producing regions, which are the little towns that they have or little settlements that they have inside of the sugarcane maze, I spoke to someone who had been detained outside of the sugarcane areas without their work permit and then deported. His family had to pay a buskong, essentially what the US Would call a coyote, to bring them back across the border. However, this forced him into what's essentially debt bondage to the buskong because the worker couldn't really pay because of the sugar plantations pay a pittance. So they were essentially in a recursive cycle of some part of my money has to go to the buskong, and then whatever's left has to go to paying for my family and my needs. And it was never enough, sadly.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

So one of the news videos that I watched as part of research for this was at pbs, like a seven minute clip where they talked to a Haitian man as they were being deported along the border. And when they went to talk to the guy's family the next day, the guy who had been deported was there because he crossed the border through the river overnight. And you can hear the astonishment in the narrator's voice, even though that script reading was probably weeks later. And it's just an example of how these borders are more porous than the state wants them to be and wants them to appear to be. So I wanted to start finishing off by mentioning that the Dominican government is now actively collaborating with the Trump administration's deportation campaign by agreeing to accept third country deportees from the US under the initiative.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

This agreement, as I hope I've shown throughout the course of this episode, is another action in a long line of collaboration between the Doctor and the US when it comes to immigration enforcement. Noticeably, the agreement leaves out Haitian nationals, and the US is supposed to provide funding to ensure that these deportees have a, quote, unquote, adequate conditions for the global Detention project, which really remains to be seen if that's the case. But if the conditions in the current immigration detention centers are anything to go by, I'm really not holding out hope that they're adequate conditions. So before I finish the episode, I want to return to Holitz death in Haina, a facility systematically created with a deep racism towards the Haitian migrants who make up the vast majority of the people detained there. Hullett was killed by a system that the United States helped create and then shaped. The probability that the DGM agents who were at Haina at the time that Hullett died, the probability that they were trained by US officials is not zero. And right now we're seeing the immigration systems that the US helped train outside of the country boomerang back towards us. What I thought was only a Thing of the Dominican Republic, where you have a kind of paramilitary style immigration force raiding everyone in sight and, you know, kind of systematically terrorizing a population has now become a common reality for millions of people inside of the U.S. yeah. I hope that we live long enough to see these border walls become ruins.

[James Stout]

Yeah, yeah, me too. I often thought, like, it would be a good book project, just go look at border walls.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[James Stout]

I just don't particularly want to do it because it would fucking suck. That's a human experience. But yeah, like, if you've lived in the U.S. in the last 20 years, you've paid for border walls and border violence all over the world and in Europe, to be fair, like the EU does this too. Right. If you've lived in the global north, you probably have a hand in the death of migrants just through paying your taxes. And that fucking sucks. It shouldn't be that way.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely.

[James Stout]

Yeah, it's tragic. I want to thank the person who reached out to us to share this story with us as well, because, like, I wouldn't have been aware of it otherwise. There's so much horrible shit happening in the immigration system that, you know, we miss things.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

So thank you for doing that.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[James Stout]

Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us. It's. It's a long time. I used to, used to ride my bicycle around the Dominican Republic a lot when I was there. And it was always nice to go out to those areas, like get it, get out of the Santo Domingo and like, see how folks live in these rural areas. But then also to be reminded of how two tiered rural existence was, especially for people like you say, Cotton Kane. Like it's, it's a brutal way to make a living too. Like hard back breaking work under the hot sun. Like a machete, like swinging a machete all day. Like you can yourself up pretty easily.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, they'll do this for like between 10 to 14 hours a day, day after day. You know, it's just them and sometimes a big hat and some clothes to protect them from the sun and a little bit of water. But yeah, it's like backbreaking labor that they're, they're working on. And you know, historically there was a movement of Haitian laborers from the Haiti to the doctor who would come for the safra, which is a sugarcane cutting season.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

And then they would leave after about six months. But as the border hardened, those people had to make a decision whether they stayed in Haiti or stayed in the place where they could get work. And a lot of them Decided that they had to stay in the places where they could get work.

[George Taveras]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Much the same as it is in the United States. Right. Like, a lot of seasonal agricultural laborers would have did the same.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Of course.

[James Stout]

Yeah. But reminded me kind of that guy, you're saying, who popped back the next day over the river. Reminded me of that Woody Guthrie song where he's talking about the. The Los Gatos Canyon plane crash and how all those people had. Many of those people had traveled multiple times from their homes in Mexico to the US Whenever there was an expense so they couldn't cover with whatever they could sell from their estancia. Right. They would come across and labor, or young people come across in labor in order to establish themselves in life and then go back. And then if they had an expense, their children, they would come back and labor some more, or some people would just come back and labor every year. And then one time on the way back, their plane crashed and they all died. Yeah. There's so much needless suffering that happens because of borders. It's rough to think about people in those detention centers. Like, that always kind of makes me sad, having spent a lot of time around them. It's pretty fucking miserable in there.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah. Yeah. Especially, like, for me, you know, I became a Dominican citizen in 2024 after I had been there. And I always think about, you know, I was seeing these people, some of which, they had spent their entire lives in the Dominican Republic and knew nothing else outside of it, but they were stateless because of this. This 2013 decision. Right. And I was thinking, you know, they've spent their whole lives here, and I have more of a right to citizenship than them. Just because my. My mom was born there and then left when she was a small child. Like, to me, I don't know, it was an extremely bleak, bleak thing to realize just how. How the state prefers some people under it and then others not. You know, it was.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

I always think, like, you know, this is. This is a person who is a Dominican. Like, this is so. So, like, culturally more Dominican than I could ever be. But I'm the one who. Who legally is entitled to citizenship. Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah. I used to think about that a lot when, like, I would go there and, like, we try and have Haitian folks come over to join us. The time I was helping with some diabetes education, nonprofit diabetes education for folks there in. How much harder it was for the Haitian folks, even if they. In some cases, like, they had family who were there, they had spent most of their lives there. Like. Like, for them it was so much harder than it was for me who, like, you know, I'm just a guy from Britain. Like. Like, I have no stake in this at all, but I could. You know, no one batted an eyelid. When you fly into that airport there and come on through, you don't even need a visa.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, yeah. I also think, like. And this might be getting too. Too into the weeds, but my great great grandparents had to leave Spain because of the monarchy, and they were part of the people who were. Or we. Or my family falls into part of the people who get citizenship through the Le Memoria Historica.

[James Stout]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

I've seen videos of so many videos and read so much about migrants trying desperately to reach Europe. And that to me is like, you know, I get to legally become a citizen because some guy that I've never met had to leave Spain. And I'm just like, this is crazy. Like, I wish I could just pass it on to somebody else because I. You know, they need it. And, you know, some people who've lived there their entire lives deserve it, like, much more than I ever could. Right.

[James Stout]

Yeah. Right. It's such a strange lottery that gives you the right to go there, reside there, work there, whatever, and someone who deeply wants you and whose life will be in danger if they weren't able to, who might die trying to, can't have it, and they're very determined to keep it from them. Like, it's such a stupid hierarchy or however you want to put it, system. But, yeah, unfortunately, it happens all over the world and it's only getting worse. Right. Like, as we're recording this, people in Belfast are fucking attacking people. Who specifically? I guess, like, I spoke to some people in Belfast today, and they were like, yeah, it's not all of us. It's a small group of loyalists who are very, very racist and have been for a very long time, but nonetheless. Right. Like, I know there's a crime think sticker that I think of a lot that says, the border doesn't protect you, it controls you. And, like, maybe Americans are realizing that now that Border patrol are murdering U.S. citizens in U.S. cities. You know, I said this the other day, and we're talking about Gregory Bevino. Like, there is no reforming this shit. Like, the nature of what we have done for decades with borders is that it kills people who did nothing wrong. And if we want to get away from the place we're at now, when this shit needs to be torn down, all of it, the way the building border wall now, it's very clearly with the understanding that they just need to build as much as possible because no administration will ever tear it down.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Absolutely.

[James Stout]

That's what they did in the first Trump administration, too. They literally skipped the hard parts. I remember being out there in late 2020, even after August, September, October, November, December, and they're like skipping the difficult heli bits just, just to put more miles of wall in. And like, they're building now, they're kind of filling some of those gaps and just building wall in places where we never thought they would because they have unlimited money. And like, they're doing it because they were right in 2020. Right. Biden didn't tear it down. In fact, he repaired and maintained and continued to build it. Like, we need to really think about rolling this shit back if we ever want to make sure that this can't happen again.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Yeah, absolutely. The depths of the mechanism have to be destroyed because like you said, there's no reforming it. And I specifically use kind of mechanism or machine to describe it. Right. Because even if you think that the only thing it applies to is, you know, immigration enforcement in the US and seeing ICE and cbp, you know, terrorizing the streets, like, I hope I've evidenced the episode. This is, this is a global project.

[James Stout]

Yeah.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

They're not only doing immigration enforcement in the U.S. they're, they're helping and sometimes doing immigration enforcement outside in, you know, if they could, they would probably go to every country on earth and be like, hey, this is how you harden your borders and do immigration enforcement.

[James Stout]

Yeah, Yeah. I was just saying it's a part of colonialism. It's spreading our violence around the world. Well, thank you for sharing that story with us. Where can people find you if they want to read more of your work? Follow you online?

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

I'm at vaquero2xl v a q u e r o2xl on all social media. And I'm also actually working on a series of mini documentaries about immigrant communities in Puerto Rico for a local website here called Noemi Yones. And I'm an editor at the Latino Newsletter where I have been reporting a lot on immigration enforcement here in Puerto Rico. Yeah. Thank you, James.

[Karen and Georgia]

Thank you for.

[James Stout]

Thank you for sharing that with us. We'll look forward to hearing from you again soon.

[Karen and Georgia]

It could happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hi, it's Karen and Georgia from My Favorite Murder.

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

We cruised around LA in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and dove into the fascinating life of actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.

[Karen and Georgia]

Want the full story?

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Take a listen.

[Hyundai Ioniq 5 Narrator]

She starts dating Howard Hughes and in fact she helps him design a faster plane. So she finds the fastest bird and the fastest fish and sketches out a drawing of what the two would look like as a plane. And that becomes the plane that we know today. And he calls her a genius. Check out our new episode spotlighting groundbreaking innovators like Hedy and Lamar and Billie Jean King.

[Karen and Georgia]

Presented by the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

[Carlos Perez Polanco]

Goodbye.

[Matt Altmix]

This is Matt Altmix from How To Money and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. I'm talking flights, phone plans, groceries, restaurants. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next ride? Share Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride. I did this the last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. Guess who came out on top? Lyft. Comparing rideshare prices will help you to save money every time you ride. Save money? Check Lyft.

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