Jhak Valcourt is a Haitian writer, translator, visual artist and teacher. He is the author of the novel El vaivén de las horas and the short story collection Grietas, from which two stories were selected for the ‘Derek Walcott Connection’ section of Trasdemar Magazine.

The police car pulls up beside you. One of the three officers asks you to stop. You obey. You try hard to control the trembling of your hands because, although you have legal status, you know that being black and Haitian in the Dominican Republic is a curse. You try to stay calm - if you haven't broken any laws, there's nothing to worry about, you tell yourself, but deep down you sense that disgrace is imminent.

"Where are you going, Moreno?" "I'm going to Caribe Tours to pick up a package." As you answer, someone else pats you down, lifts your tee-shirt. "Give us your documents!" In your hand you carry a book and in your pocket is your phone and wallet with a copy of your passport, student card and regularisation ID. All up to date. You take them out and hand them over. They look at them. They look at you. They look at each other. "Take him away!" the boss orders, annoyed, as if he'd wanted to find you without documents. "Moreno, those are fake documents!", another one says to you, almost apologetically. He grabs you by the belt loops of your trousers and pulls you into the car as if you were a thief.

As of 2023, over 500,000 Haitians live in the Dominican Republic, which has a population of about 11 million. According to human rights activists, mistreatment of Haitians has increased under DR president Luis Abinader, who took office in August 2020. Observers said that a spike in deportations occurred in 2021, with more than 31,000 sent back to Haiti. Numerous anti-Haitian actions by the DR government were cited, including separation of children from their parents and deportation of pregnant women; racial profiling (most Haitians are black, Dominicans identify as mixed race); suspension of Haitian student visas, requiring Haitian migrants to register their location, and prohibited companies from hiring migrants for more than 20% of their workforce. Since the Dominican government announced on October 2, 2024, that it would implement its campaign to expel 10,000 immigrants per week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has recorded more than 7,800 expulsions of Haitians at three of the four official border crossings between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in less than a week, a 95% increase over the previous week.

On the way, you make a couple of calls. Because once in the detention centre, you are incommunicado. They take away your belt, your shoelaces, your phone, and lock you in a pig stye that stinks worse than a bin lorry that hasn't been emptied for months. As consolation, they tell you "if everything's in order, you have nothing to fear". But they never tell you that you are legal, you are free. The worst thing is that you have all the proof of being in order.

After a while, they open the door and take you out with other Haitians. Some have been here since the day before. They have had nothing to eat or drink. They write you a report, put you in another patrol vehicle and transfer you to another centre. Is it to mislead the people you called for help?

There, things are worse; as soon as you cross the door of that other detention centre, you are greeted with threats from the other prisoners. Just like the police, they pull down your trousers, check you all over, right down to your backside, to see what you're you're carrying. If you have money, they take it from you. You run the risk of being beaten or even raped, and if that happens, the officers don't give a damn, because in their eyes, no one in that cell is human. You are worth less than a pig. They don't care whether you're a student, a shopkeeper, a teacher, a bricklayer, whatever.

Here, in this hole, you have lost every right to be human. In fact, your dignity collapsed at the very spot where they arrested you; it stayed there, crushed. That thing they carry with them is one thing, nothing distinguishes you from an animal. No one cares if you're thirsty. The stench of shit and dried urine, accumulated over centuries, bursts your lungs. You hear your phone ringing. It's the people you called for help, but they won't let you take the call even though they had told you that if someone came for you they would release you. It was a lie. Here, every officer is deaf to any complaint, any plea.

The immigration officers arrive - maybe the police called them to inform them about the cattle they just brought in for them. It's humanly impossible to explain your case to them in a way which might sensitise them. In fact, in their code of honour, certain words simply do not exist: sensitivity, heart, respect, humanism...

They put you in the livestock trailer that, full of garbage and humidity, has the same stench as the detention cells. Once you're in there, you have no right to get out to relieve yourself no matter how many times they circle the city looking for other "animals" like you. And when you see how they hunt them down, you don't know whether you should be thankful for having been detained by the police, and thus not persecuted like this as if you had committed the most heinous of crimes. The impotence, the rage, fills you to bursting. You feel like crying,but you resist, so as not to give them the damned pleasure of enjoying your humiliation, of enjoying their absurd revenge. But revenge for what? What have we done to them to arouse so much hatred, so much contempt?

If your documents were not in order, you could blame yourself, or the government of your country. But you have legal status, you have the documents that the same immigration office gave you and for which you paid more than 20,000 pesos during the regularisation plan, in addition to the annual renewal fee for the 'privilege' of being mistreated? Yes, here, in the Dominican Republic, the Haitian pays immigration to be mistreated, to be humiliated, to have our dignity trampled on.

Every year, a lawyer takes between 2,500 to 3,500 pesos from you for a letter of employment, between 2,000 to 3,000 for a good conduct document, and you pay 2,000 for the renewal of the ID card that they will supposedly give you within 2 months of the application, but for which you wait up to a year or more, because during this time they consider you illegal, and if you are illegal, the business of deporting you to then charge you to return is booming. A master stroke.

"Here, if you want to survive, you have to hold your nose to swallow stinking water; and it's ten thousand times better to fall into the hands of robbers than the hands of the police or immigration, because that lot are just robbers with the power and blessing of the government," says a companion of the truck, or prison bus. At that you raise your head, you look at him with such admiration, because no-one will listen to that 'nobody', who has the exact words to express our tragedy. No-one will know that he was detained with legal documents, like you.

The driver constantly slams on the brakes as if he were transporting cattle to the slaughterhouse -  as if to say "they are already dead, what's the use of treating them any better?" "Hey, boss," calls a Haitian to an officer, "how much do I have to give you to let me go? I'm leaving my wife who just gave birth, and two other kids. Today is payday and I'm their only hope. They don't even know I'm here." The boss smiles shamelessly and shows him five disgusting fingers. "Five thousand," a compatriot explains to him in a sad, raspy voice. The man sighs, clenches his jaw, "Oh dear god, see our misery!" he says shaking his head before  reaching with resignation into his pocket and handing something to the guard through the bars. The guard hands the money to another, then opens the door and carelessly releases the wrong man. Now it all makes sense: This is a lucrative business, you can see it in the belly of every immigration agent. How many Haitians pay that sum every day?

Another sudden brake throws us to the back of the truck. You cannot afford to fall to the ground, because this pestilence, this filth, is difficult to remove, even if you scrub it with bleach, because it is not a stain that sticks to your skin or clothes, but to your soul. It is the stain that is stamped on your forehead from the moment you arrive in the Dominican Republic, so that you do not forget your condition - Haitian, black, outraged, despicable, rejected...

"Haina Holiday Welcome Centre?" Hang on, let me explain these words: to welcome, is to offer hospitality or shelter; people welcomed in an establishment of BENEFIT; and holiday, on holiday? Wow! Immigration should think of a better name. Perhaps more fitting would be: " Haina Centre for the Collection of Dreaming Cows", because, although they treat us like animals, we do dream, we dream that one day they will treat us like human beings, with all the dignity we deserve, without hate, without contempt, without anti-Haitian sentiment.  Holiday Centre of Dreaming Cows ...Ugghhh! Ironic, isn't it? Sure, we're on holiday. We're dreaming cows! Why not? What's the difference between a cow and you, in this situation?

Once in the courtyard of the centre, you long for them to let you out of the truck at once so you can breathe fresh air, but no, they leave you there, locked up, while the sun beats down on the metal of the roof and the heat penetrates your brain. You have the feeling that their intentions are to wring you dry of your last drop of sweat, until you lose your senses. When they finally let you out, it is to line you up in rows of ten, to take photos of you -evidence of their heroic, patriotic work: pornography from your misery- because of course you're there in that cow-dreaming centre to model.

Inside it stinks just like prison. A cement floor, wet, where those who stay longer have to sleep. Outside, people are paying to have their loved ones released. Those who don't have money, well, let them wait, contemplating their fate. Meanwhile you wonder, if they treat us like this, the legal and visible people, how will they treat the invisible, the undocumented and the voiceless? But the saddest thing is that when they finally release you, the Dominican Republic doesn't taste the same to you. It tastes rotten, decomposed. So you worry, it hurts you to no longer look at your friends in this country with the same respect, with the same appreciation and love, even though they are blameless.