B&B’s work on Dominican deportees illustrates how the deportation regime adapts, assimilates, and integrates immigrant cultures in a segmented fashion, but simultaneously dehumanizes, incarcerates, and removes immigrant bodies back to the global south.

1. Syndemics, Citizenship, and the Politics of
Deportation in the Dominican Republic
Authors:
Mark Padilla, Associate Professor (Principal Investigator, Syndemics Projects), Florida
International University
José F. Colón Burgos, Ethnographer (Syndemics Project), Universidad de Puerto Rico
Nelson Varas-Díaz, Professor, Co-Investigador (Syndemics Project), Universidad de
Puerto Rico
Armando Matiz, Research Associate, Project Director (Syndemics Project), Florida
International University
Prepared for the American Anthropological Association annual meeting,
Washington, D.C., December 3, 2014.

2. Global “deportation regime”
¨ “Deportability” – The social,
political, economic, and
demographic processes that
produce often racialized “others” as
individuals who can be removed
from national territories through the
legal and bureaucratic procedures
of nation-states.
¨ Deportation Regime: A global
industry of deportation characterized
by heightened securitization and by
states’ ideological and infrastructural
investment in three distinct but
interrelated global wars: the war on
terror, the war on drugs, and the war
on immigration.1 Protests against President Obama’s
near-record number of deportations,
predicted to exceed President Bush’s
record by the end of 2014 1. Based on De Genova and Peutz, eds. (2010). The Deportation Regime:
Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Durham: Duke U. Press.

3. Escalation of Dominican deportations from
US (1963-2003)1
“Following the
enactment of IIRAIRA in
1996, the number of
Dominicans deported
for noncriminal
offenses increased
exponentially.” (Broth-erton
and Barrios,
2011)
1996: Enactment of the U.S. Illegal
Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA)
1. Graph adapted from David Brotherton and Luis Barrios. (2011). Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees
and their Stories of Exile. New York: Columbia University Press.

4. Brotherton and Barrios’ notion of
“social bulimia”
¨ “Social bulimia” used to
describe the process of cultural
inclusion while expelling entire
populations en masse
¨ B&B’s work on Dominican
deportees illustrates how the
deportation regime adapts,
assimilates, and integrates
immigrant cultures in a
segmented fashion, but
simultaneously dehumanizes,
incarcerates, and removes
immigrant bodies back to the
global south.

5. Some critical gaps in research on deportees
¨ The lived experiences, perceptions, social and health
consequences of deportation for the growing number of
people experiencing such “forced migration.”
¤ One important exception: Yolanda Martin’s work “Wasting
Away”
¨ The need for research on processes of returning “home”
post-deportation
¤ How do individuals re-constitute identities post-deportation?
¤ How do they cope with that trauma upon return “home”?
¤ How and to what extent are the re-incorporated?
¤ What are their strategies for economic survival?
¤ What are the impacts on overall health and well-being?

6. Syndemics Project: 2013-2018
¨ “Migration, Tourism, and the HIV/Drug Use Syndemic in
the Dominican Republic” (1 R01 DA031581-01A1, PI:
Mark Padilla)
¨ Mixed-method research on the drug and HIV epidemics
among male tourism employees in the Dominican
Republic
¨ Involves ethnographic an survey research with male
tourism migrants in Boca Chica and Santo Domingo
¨ Uses syndemic theory to theorize the social and
structural factors that may result in an HIV/Drug use
syndemic

7. Conceptual framework: A syndemic
linked to the tourism industry?

8. Developing theories on the connection
between deportation and tourism labor
¨ Little attention in the existing research on deportation,
especially on the connections between deportation and
tourism labor in the Caribbean
¨ Our research to date: Almost all current tourism laborers
with international migratory experience are deportees
¨ A global system of “geonarcotics” incorporates these men
only as low-level laborers in illicit informal economies both
in the “core” and the “periphery.”
¨ Local economies and cultures shape informal economies
and the strategies that deportees use to make a living
(e.g., “sex work” as a market demand in the DR due to
the sex tourism industry)

9. Structural factors generating syndemic conditions
for Dominican deportees working in tourism labor
¨ Have participated in illicit, socially stigmatized street
economies on two sides of the transnational circuit
¨ Discrimination in (formal) employment due to presumed
criminality
¨ Often separated or estranged from their families
¨ Histories of selling and/or consuming illicit drugs
¨ Extended periods of incarceration
¨ Have struggled for years with addiction and treatment
¨ Have little access to effective interventions, such as harm
reduction approaches
¨ Lack of access to clinical treatment for addiction, which is
essentially non-existent in the DR

10. Official government statistics of
deportation
Place of
deportation
n %
Puerto Rico 307 9.99
USA 2,767 90.01
Total 3,074
Deportee
Nationality
n %
Dominican
Republic
3,893 0.6
Department of Migration of the
Dominican Republic 2013-2014
US Department of Homeland
Security 2013

11. US Department of Homeland Security
2013
64.1%
11.1% 9.7% 7.7%
0.9% 0.6%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
Mexico Guatemala Honduras El Salvador Ecuador Dominican
Republic

12. The social production of stigma against
deportees in the Dominican Republic
¨ Male deportees described
as heavily involved in drug
use and drug trade;
“Dominicanyorks” are often
blamed for local increases
in crime.
¨ “Deportado” (deportee)
functionally synonymous
with “drogadicto” (drug
addict) or even
“narcotraficante” (narco-trafficker)
Bureaucratic procedures – such as the mug
shots taken of all arriving deportees – are
symbolic of their social labeling as criminals.
Photo by Mark Padilla.

13. “War on drugs” and Dominican deportation
Charges against Deportees (N=102)
Homicide 2%
Sexual Assault 2%
Theft 4%
Non-criminal 4%
Assault 6%
Illegal entry / Drugs 59%
Migration 14%
Multiple Criminal
Charges 5%
Child pornography
1%
Arms possession 2% Not specified 1%
*Data from ethnographic observation of deportee registration event, Sept 17, 2014, Santo Domingo.

14. The case of “Fernando”
¨ [Add images to this
slide]

15. Conclusion: Theorizing the syndemic factors
among deportees working in tourism
Social Production of
“deportability”
Illicit Drug
use
Migration,
deportation,
and tourism
HIV/Drug
Abuse
Syndemic
VIH/
AIDS
Expulsion and trauma
Figure adapted from Singer, Merrill (2010)
of deportation
Stigmatization of new
arrivals
Reinsertion into
informal labor
Informal tourism labor
(drugs, sex work)
Worsening of
addiction
Mental health
sequelae
Lack of access to
drug treatment

16. Thank you!
¨ The National Institutes for Health is acknowledged for support of
the research reported in this presentation [National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant #1 R01 DA031581-01A1, PI: Padilla]
¨ We thank the following individuals from the Universidad
Autónoma de Santo Domingo: Adrián Puello Guerrero, Ana
Estévez, Leda Herasme, Jorge Asjana. We also wish to thank the
following individuals for their support: Alexis Martinez, Caroline
Parker, Alexander Fernandez, Martin Tsang.