Dominican Republic

In the Dominican Republic (DR), an expansive interpretation of “in transit” has been applied to migrants who lack an officially recognized migration status, regardless of their length of stay in the country. This has the effect of excluding their children from birthright citizenship when born on the territory. The DR has used this line of legal reasoning since 2003 in court decisions, legislative and constitutional reform culminating in its 2013 Constitutional Court sentence 168-13, or “La Sentencia.” It ordered an audit of birth registration records dating back to 1929 and removal of any children of foreigners “in transit” (migrants without status) who had been registered as Dominican nationals. This human rights violation has been denounced before the regional human rights system and all of the UN mechanisms to which the state is party. The DR deliberately deployed this legal logic to exclude descendants of Haitian migrants from civil registration and citizenship, and when denounced, deepened this practice.