It seemed ominous to me, crossing the border yesterday between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, that the last town in Haiti was called Malpasse — bad crossing. For many Haitians these days it has, indeed, been a terrible crossing — as I explore in this time.com story. Since making the drive nearly two weeks ago, a crop of Dominican “check points,” nine by my count, have sprouted. The gouging is obvious: they pull over any car they think has Haitians in it and shake them down for cash if they’re in the country illegally or, if they’re there legally, asking for a fee to avoid unnecessary hassles. I saw several drivers forking over wads of cash to police and at every point when they learned we were American journalists the police quickly waved us by, afraid, our Dominican driver told us, that we’d photograph the graft.
The Dominican government has been surprisingly helpful to Haiti in the wake of the disaster: opening a corridor for gas and relief shipments from the Dominican San Isidro Air Force base into Haiti and offering up all kinds of aid. You see Dominican trucks every where in Haiti, helping to clear bodies and rubble. And the borders have — since a brief closure early on — remained amazingly open for journalists and aid workers. Yes, it is not in the Dominican Republic’s best interest to have an overwhelming influx of refugees into the country. But there must be a better way to control the influx: how many people do these check points actually filter out when coyotes are bringing refugees across country? Surely, the Dominican government can either pay their police forces a bit better or have better control of them so they aren’t baldly taking from a people from whom nearly everything has already been taken?