U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power on Oct. 7 met with LGBTQ activists in the Dominican Republic.

Diversidad Dominicana Executive Director Rosanna Marzán, Amigos Siempre Amigos Director Leonardo Sánchez, Sirana Dolis of Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico Haitianas (MUDHA) and Bridget Wooding of the Caribbean Migration and Development Observatory (OBMICA) are among those who met with Power in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. Power in a tweet said she also met with human rights activists who are working to “restore legal documentation” for the more than 100,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent who live in the country.

The Dominican Republic borders Haiti on Hispaniola.

The Dominican House of Representatives in June approved a bill that would remove sexual orientation from the country’s Penal Code. The Dominican Senate has yet to consider the measure that has sparked outrage among the country’s LGBTQ activists.

Power traveled to the Dominican Republic two months after Haitian President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake on Aug. 14 left scores of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands of others in Haiti’s Tiburon Peninsula. Immigration Equality is among the groups that criticized the Biden administration last month over the deportation of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers from Texas. 

James “Wally” Brewster was the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic from 2013-2017. He is one of six openly gay men who represented the U.S. abroad during the Obama administration.