PR: 183 illegal Dominicanos detained and repatriated

The Dominican Republic's Navy detained 125 Dominicans packed aboard a rickety boat trying to reach Puerto Rico on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 4,500 migrants detained since October, officials said.

In the past two days, authorities have detained 183 Dominican boat migrants, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard helicopter spotted a 40-foot (12-meter) boat carrying the 125 migrants about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the northwest town of Aguadilla, spokesman Ensign Eric Willis said.
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There has been a record rise in the number of migrants caught trying to reach the island illegally, as the Dominican Republic faces a worsening economic crisis marked by a severe drop in the peso's value and 42 percent inflation.

In only four months, authorities surpassed the previous record of 3,477 migrants detained in fiscal year 2003. Authorities have detained 4,535 migrants since fiscal year 2004 began Oct. 1, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Victor Colon said.

Most are Dominicans caught on dangerous sea voyages aboard overcrowded and rickety boats in attempts to reach better economic opportunities on U.S. soil.

The Dominicanos are treated just like the Haitians — interdicted at sea and returned home. They are being treated just like the Cubans who are being subjected to the wet-foot-dry-foot policy. Does nobody care or notice? The economic measures the IMF has insisted Santo Domingo implement are most surely worsening the country's economic situation. Economic distress and poverty seem to be a standard feature of life in any country that's crazy enough to go to the IMF. Go to the IMF with a slight headache, and they'll give you a concussion.

Back in 1989, I had cause to pass through Santo Domingo in transit from the Turks & Caicos to T&T. Santo Domingo back then was a place of astonishing poverty; I'd never seen the like of it in T&T and Barbados.