Now, if the Dominican Republic – which shares the same island as Haiti, speaks the same language, has established migration channels, and has a much lower unemployment rate (4.9%) is not absorbing Haitian labour at scale, that tells us something important. Countries closest to a crisis always absorb labour first if that labour is genuinely scarce and economically needed. The Dominican Republic doesn’t reject Haitian workers out of cruelty; it limits intake because its labour market doesn’t require large numbers of unskilled foreign workers. When labour is needed, markets pull it in naturally. When it’s not, governments impose controls.
Dominica’s situation is the opposite of what Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration claim. With 15% unemployment, outward migration, stagnant wages, and fragile markets, Dominica doesn’t meet a single economic indicator of a labour shortage. No wage pressure. No bidding for workers. No productivity boom. Just underemployment and people leaving. Importing cheap, unskilled foreign labour into that environment doesn’t fill a gap – it instead suppresses recovery.
So the real question is the right one: Why does Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration want Haitians when the neighbouring country, the Dominican Republic, with a better economy and working conditions, does not?
The answer is not humanitarian as Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration would like us to believe, and it’s not an economic necessity. It’s political and structural. What is in it for him?
In Dominica, foreign nationals who become lawful residents can become eligible to register and vote after one year of residence. That matters a lot. Because voting rights aren’t an abstract principle – they are political power.
So now ask the obvious question that Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration hope no one will ask: Who do you think these newly arrived unskilled workers will vote for in an election?
We see it in Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration’s housing scheme, which has created a whole population of dependent voters who need housing. People own the keys to their homes, but the government owns the deeds. If you vote the government out, you potentially lose your keys when a new party takes over. So the message is clear: protect your keys by keeping the party in power – and you get to keep your keys.
Now, with that in play, do you think Haitians, after living here for a year, are going to vote for a brand-new party that has control over their papers, permits, and livelihoods? Unsure what to expect? Or will they vote for the ruling party – the very same government that “regularized” them, sponsored them, housed them, and positioned itself as their protector?
No one escapes poverty, insecurity, or state failure and then votes against the hand that offered stability – especially when their status still fees conditional. That is not a moral judgment; it’s human reality. Gratitude, fear, and dependency shape political behaviour everywhere in the world. So let’s stop pretending this policy exists in a vacuum.
Haitian nationals are being treated as a political tool – plain and simple. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are trying to manufacture an electoral advantage by importing a population that will be eligible to vote after just one year of residence. That timing is not a mistake. It’s strategic. It’s deliberate. It’s cynical. It’s an election that must be called by December 2027.
This is the same strategy he has used with the diaspora vote – rely on external or dependent voters to cover for falling domestic support. Now he is trying to replicate it internally, while our people who have lived here all their lives are ignored, squeezed out, and pushed out of a fair and free election.
Make no mistake: this is not a policy for prosperity. It’s a scheme, a scam to manipulate your ballot box. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are attempting to bring in cheap, vulnerable workers to outnumber Dominican citizens in the election, just like he has done with the diaspora vote. It’s a blatant attempt to steal an election, and the math is as clear as day.
Dominicans need to wake up and see what is happening. This is not a theory. This is not speculation. This is reality. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration aren’t solving unemployment, not helping farmers, andn’t building markets. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are engineering votes and using human beings as political pawns.
I am calling it exactly what it’s: a desperate, calculated move to maintain power by pushing out Dominica workers, families, and the integrity of our democracy. No euphemisms. No excuses. No spin. This is political manipulation, it’s an attempt to steal an election, and it’s happening in plain sight, without fear.
Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration state “We as Dominicans are almost literally in every country, and why should we look down on people who say they want to come to Dominica to live and work?”
Really, Roosevelt Skerrit? How many of us got a free pass to go to Canada or the United States and just start living and working? How many of your people have that privilege? Oh, right – Donald Trump is deporting our people, yet you and and your administration refuse to even acknowledge it. You will not tell us why our own citizens are being pushed out while you invite cheap, unskilled foreign workers into our country that bring nothing to the table.
Let me make this very clear: this is a recipe for guaranteed disaster. You don’t need a rocket scientist to figure this out. If we don’t have enough jobs, housing, healthcare, or education for our own people, bringing in more cheap, unskilled workers can only makes things worse. And yet Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration continue to ignore this, spinning lies, pretending they have the solutions, while reality screams in the faces of ordinary Dominicans.
And it’s time to be honest – Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration will not address this, not because they cannot, but because they cannot admit the truth without exposing their own failures.
Local media? Forget it. They will not press him. He hides behind soft, pre-arranged questions, cameras that only show what he wants, and media outlets that refuse to challenge him. He is comfortable lying, avoiding accountability, and acting like everything is fine.
And that alone should make anyone wonder why the local media and other party leaders are so quiet about the obvious. We have only been around for nine months, and we are calling it like it’s – because, unlike the rest of these fake party leaders, I actually care.
This affects my family and me. It affects my friends and my communities. As I have said before, I don’t have the privilege of being part of the elite, the top 1%. I struggle every month to pay bills, feed our family, and make sure my children are taken care of.
That is why I do what I do and say what I say. Because this is personal. And I am tired – tired of a system, no, tired of Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration, of Thomson Fontaine, Joshua Francis, Bernad Hault, and all these other elected officials who cry about how they can “relate” to me when they have no idea what the rest of us are doing just to survive.
And let me be very clear: when Roosevelt Skerrit has to face the public during any upcoming debates, he will have to face me, face our citizens, and confront the lies he has told, the policies he has pushed, and the consequences of his decisions. He will no longer be able to ignore it on live television. Roosevelt Skerrit can run and hide now, but eventually he will have to stand on stage and address the words I have said, words backed by facts, experience, and reality. Roosevelt Skerrit, you cannot hide from the truth forever.
When Roosevelt Skerrit says, “Left to me, I would remove visa requirements for all nationalities,” and then wraps that claim in moral language about fairness and reciprocity, it may sound noble – until you remember who is speaking, how long he has been in power, and that every time his lips move, it’s a lie he presents. After nearly 25 years, has Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration found enlightenment?
Then comes the emotional shield: “We cannot continue to treat our Haitian brothers and sisters as if they have leprosy… The Haitian people are decent people.” That line is the biggest pile of nonsense in this entire debate.
No one is seriously arguing that Haitians aren’t decent people. That is not the issue. The issue is instrumentalization, and Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are using Haitian suffering as a political prop to try to steal an election.
Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration may claim to care about Haitians now, but where was this compassion over the last two and a half decades? Haiti didn’t suddenly collapse last year. Its instability, poverty, and political crisis have been ongoing for generations. And Dominican Republic individuals – which he now conveniently folds into the same moral narrative – aren’t struggling. The country has one of the strongest growth records in the region and unemployment under 5%. These realities didn’t appear overnight.
So why now?
- Because his poll numbers are sinking.
- Because public confidence is eroding.
- Because the economic story has collapsed.
- Because he holds a press conference, and no one shows up or watches online.
- Because he is running out of ideas to sell to our people who no longer believe him.
- Because the economy is dying and running out of money to bribe people for votes.
Suddenly, when legitimacy is fading, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration “discover” Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Suddenly, they “discover” visa-free virtue. Suddenly, they “discover” moral outrage. And suddenly, Dominica must absorb people that Haiti’s neighbours – and even the United States are actively deporting. Nope, nothing to see here, local media outlets, right?
This was never about dignity. It’s about political utility. Haitians and Dominican Republic individuals aren’t being welcomed as equals into a functioning economy. They are being imported into a broken one – not to build prosperity, but to suppress wages, pad labour supply, reshape demographics, and manufacture gratitude to later steal an election. Wrapping that strategy in anti-racist language does not make it ethical – it makes it cynical.
You don’t get to ignore these countries for 25 years and then claim moral authority when your popularity collapses. You don’ot get to frame critics as heartless while quietly undercutting your own Dominican workers. And you surely don’t get to pretend this is about open borders when the policy selectively benefits employers, your election bid, and not our people.
If Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration truly believed in visa-free movement for all, he would have built:
- Fair wages.
- Functioning markets.
- Worker protections.
- Integration policies.
- Housing, healthcare, and labour enforcement.
He did none of that. Instead, he discovered “compassion” at the exact moment it became politically useful. Haitians are decent people. Dominicans are decent people. What is indecent is that Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration are using human beings as a political tool to cover policy failure and to try and steal an election.
This isn’t humanitarian leadership. It’s desperation dressed up as virtue. Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration need their votes after one-year of residence. And there’s the part Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration will never say out loud.
After about one year of legal residence, these cheap and unskilled foreign workers become eligible voters to register and vote under Dominica’s electoral system. That is not speculation. That is how the system works. And once you understand that, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration’s humanitarian stops looking generous and starts looking strategic. That is the truth, Roosevelt Skerrit and his administration hope no one connects the dots – but once you do, the whole story snaps into focus.
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