The Dominican Republic has launched a new phase of its comprehensive border security strategy, starting construction on a 14.5-kilometer fortified perimeter fence along its southern shared border with Haiti, the nation’s Ministry of Defense confirmed in an official statement released Saturday. The new infrastructure project, which will reach a total height of 3.9 meters, includes six purpose-built watchtowers, 35 culverts, and seven-meter-wide patrol lanes running along both sides of the fence to boost military mobility and surveillance capabilities. The construction is taking place in Hoya de Enriquillo, a district of Independencia Province that the Dominican government identifies as one of the most critical and historically challenging points on the entire shared border. For decades, this region has struggled with persistent unregulated cross-border activity, including large-scale smuggling of contraband goods. As the location of one of the largest formal binational trade markets between the two countries, the new infrastructure is designed to crack down on illicit activity while fostering more organized, transparent, and rule-compliant cross-border commerce, according to the defense ministry. The patrol lanes, a core component of the project, are engineered to allow security forces to deploy faster and respond more effectively to any emerging security threat along this section of the border. This new construction is the second phase of the broader national ‘Strong Border’ initiative, an all-encompassing government strategy aimed at upgrading security, modernizing infrastructure, and driving sustainable development across the entire Dominican-Haitian border region. Similar fortified fence segments were already completed in previous phases in Jimaní Province, and to date, approximately 55 kilometers of border fencing has been finished across the country: 38 kilometers along the northern border, with additional segments in the central province of Elías Piña and southern provinces of Independencia and Pedernales. Beyond physical fencing, the ‘Strong Border’ plan integrates multiple layers of security, from increased military presence to cutting-edge surveillance technology and coordinated inter-agency cooperation. According to Dominican Minister of Defense Carlos Antonio Fernández Onofre, the full project includes 1,500 solar-powered security lights, fiber-optic communications infrastructure, AI-enabled smart surveillance cameras, and a network of drones all operated from a central command center run by the Ministry of Defense. Backing this technology and infrastructure is a deployment of roughly 11,000 trained military personnel along the entire border defense line, supported by specialized surveillance and patrol equipment to reinforce security operations. The new fence construction comes as the Dominican government continues to implement a sweeping deportation policy launched in October 2024, which targets a goal of repatriating 10,000 undocumented Haitian migrants per week to curb irregular immigration. Official government data shows that between January and July 2024 alone, Dominican authorities deported more than 250,000 undocumented Haitian nationals back to Haiti, a country currently grappling with a widespread multidimensional political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
The Dominican Republic is building a new fence on its border with Haiti to curb smuggling.
