News Information

• NEWS_POSTED_BY: Haiti Place
• NEWS_POSTED_ON: Aug 04, 2015
• Views : 716
• Category : General News
• Description : By AZAM AHMED, JULY 30, 2015
  
  Photo: After the owners of the resort Jardín Deportivo in the Dominican Republic gave up on it, Haitian refugees moved into the stripped-down site and set up households and businesses. A new immigration law has again brought change to the property. Credit Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
• Location : Cabarete, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
• Website : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/world/americas/dominican-resorts-fate-at-center-of-debate-over-haitians-and-immigration.html?

Overview

• CABARETE, Dominican Republic — Just a few kilometers down the road, in the center of Cabarete, the tourism industry pulses with life: Beachfront restaurants dish up offerings as varied as ceviche and pizza, tourists cart surfboards and sport fanny packs, and combed white sand as clean as crisp bed linen beckons sunbathers.
  
  But here, in this abject corner of the island, fear and loathing is the more common fare. Jardín Deportivo, once a fancy place for tourists seeking an alternative to the all-inclusive Caribbean resort, stands as a relic twice abandoned — and as a testament to the profound change underway in the Dominican Republic.
  
  Built beyond the outer edge of the tourist zone, the Jardín was developed in a spot that seemed, in the early 2000s, destined to be along the path of the booming industry. But momentum stalled, tourists stopped drifting this way and the owners, of whom little is remembered, vanished.
  
  Flora and fauna claimed the courtyard. The bright pastel walls dimmed. The bar, fashioned as a nerve center for patrons, fell dormant. Wiring, lighting, even doors were all stripped for sale.
  
  At least until around 2010, when the Jardín got an unexpected shot of life. After the earthquake in Haiti, a flood of new residents turned up at the Jardín: migrant workers fleeing the desperation of their homeland.
  
  The resort brimmed with energy once more, marked by a cheery disrepair. Haitian squatters transformed offices into bodegas with snacks and beer. Residents bought new doors and filled the hotel rooms with furniture and family photos. The old tennis shop became a discothèque.
  
  And now, just as suddenly, the party has stopped once more.
  
  In recent weeks, after a government deadline passed for all undocumented immigrants in the Dominican Republic to register with the authorities, the Jardín Deportivo once again became a wasteland. The largely Haitian tenants fled, leaving behind clothes, furniture and personal belongings as if running from a natural disaster.
  
  “Until recently this place was filled with Haitian immigrants,” said Lúelu, a Haitian neighbor whose brother was living in the hotel and was among those who fled, withholding her last name out of fear of the authorities. “Two weeks ago, they just started leaving.”
  
  Read more here >>