should work to help them. This year is worse, I can’t and this hurts me.” This situation stands in contrast to remittances sent by Dominican migrants in the US to their relatives in the DR during the pandemic. Despite projections of a decline in remittances on a global scale, some countries have not felt this trend. For example, Banco de México (2020) found that July 2020 saw the highest level of remittances ever reported. Something similar happened in the DR, which reports receiving up to 0.5 percent more remittances in the first six months of 2020 than in the same period in 2019 (Pew Research Center 2020). In part, it may be that migrants in the global north have had access to government measures to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, in contrast to the exclusion of migrants from such measures in the DR. On the other hand, the countercyclical nature of remittances has been observed, as migrants take into account the hardships of their families in the country of origin; despite an initial decline in the wake of COVID-19 in many LAC countries, remittances recovered quickly and are now even outpacing remittance flows from 2019 (UNDP 2020b). h) Access to vaccination To understand how Haitian migrants and their stateless descendants have been considered in the Dominican COVID-19 response, three elements must be taken into consideration. First, the structural conditions of the Dominican Republic: for several decades public investment in health has been limited, which has negatively affected pandemic preparedness. The second element is the large number of people with an irregular migration status. The 2017 National Immigrant Survey, ENI-2017, found that among the foreign population residing in the country only 27.7% have a card or sticker from the National Regularization Plan; 8.4% have a card from the General Directorate of Migration; 3.8% have a Dominican ID for foreigners; and 2.3% have a Dominican ID (ONE 2018). This data shows irregularity to be the predominant status among the foreign population in the Dominican Republic. The third factor is the relatively low social security coverage of immigrants in the Dominican Republic. According to data from the ENI-2017, 86.9% of the immigrant population did not have health insurance, a figure that increases to 95% among those born in Haiti (ONE 2018). For stateless descendants of migrants, the situation is similar, as the ENI-2017 estimates 80.9% do not have health insurance. Migrant and stateless person protection within the Dominican COVID-19 response has been reduced to: medical attention within the [public] health system, with limitations due to their exclusion from health insurance; tests and referrals performed by the Ministry of Public Health during community health interventions in COVID-19 hot spots; and receipt of food aid or medicines through extra-official humanitarian aid. It is understood that exceptional times require special measures, as can be seen in the stance adopted by some countries in the region towards forced migrants from Venezuela (OBMICA 2021:4). While there is an array of practices in Latin America and the Caribbean, two examples are highlighted below for the protection offered to this population. In short, the Colombian government announced in 2021 that it would regularize a cohort of 800,000 Venezuelan migrants with irregular status, granting a 10year Temporary Protected Status (ETP, in Spanish), including residence. The ETP as proof of residence can serve to prevent statelessness, helping the children of Venezuelan parents born in Colombia acquire Colombian nationality. Unlike other countries in the region, Brazil has developed a policy of recognizing a significant number of Venezuelans as prima facie refugees in recent years. Indeed, it is worth asking why more countries in the region have not done the same, recalling that historically the region has an expansive interpretation of the definition of refugee that is embodied in the “Cartagena Declaration” (1984) and that certain countries have incorporated into their domestic laws. Set against this background, we must recognize the noteworthy efforts that the DR has undertaken in 2021 to normalize the status of Venezuelans, despite being far more limited in time than the measures approved by Brazil and Colombia. It is important to recall that newly arrived Venezuelans could not apply for the National Regularization Plan (2014/2015), which required arrival in the country before October 2011. In addition, official figures show a boom in the arrival of Venezuelans, which the Dominican authorities calculated at the end of 2019 to be more than 100,000 people with irregular status. Currently there is a special plan underway for Venezuelan migrants with irregular status, which is expected to result in positive changes, even if it does Research Brief: COVID-19 Impacts on Haitian Migrants and their Descendants on the Southern Border of the D.R. 29