SAHNI ARTICLE 3.3.21 (WORD) (DO NOT DELETE) 122 Gonzaga Journal of International Law 5/6/2021 7:21 PM Vol. 24:2 undocumented migrants were “in transit” aliens, including those whose children were born after 1929.96 The offspring were no longer Dominican nationals even if they possessed local birth certificates. The State reregistered [their] identity documents as birth records belonging to foreigners.97 In effect, all current and future generations of Haitian migrants are foreigners in transit.98 Although a State is entitled to formulate its nationality criteria,99 the Dominican Republic nationality laws arguably are contrary to public policy due to their retrospective application. They breach Article 15 of the UDHR. The effects of revoking nationality from documented migrants retrospectively cause systemic discrimination. They deprive the individuals of equal protection of the laws. In addition, withholding access to local identity documents and social services to undocumented individuals are arbitrary state acts. The arbitrary conduct aggregates when the persons become stateless and risk deportation.100 It is unfounded since the stateless status of these persons counters Article 20 of the American Convention and Article 24 of the ICCPR. Like the expelled Dominicans of Haitian descent, the Rohingyas of Myanmar are a displaced population owing to systematic discrimination. Their citizenship, too, was revoked by operation of law. The 1982 Citizenship Law does not recognize the Rohingyas as a national race that settled in Myanmar pre-1824 though the Rohingyas are believed to have occupied the Rakhine State for at least two centuries.101 It disqualifies Muslim, Hindu, and Christian Rohingyas from acquiring citizenship and prompts intergenerational statelessness. Unlike the Dominican Republic, the Myanmar State has not authorized the deportation of Rohingyas as an effect of citizenship laws, mandatory nationality criteria, or court judgments. The Rohingyas are stateless because and Haitians v. Dominican Republic, Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs, Judgement, Inter-Am. Ct, H.R. (ser. C) No. 282, ¶ 325 (Aug. 28, 2014). 96. David C. Baluarte, Inter-American Justice Comes to the Dominican Republic: An Island Shakes as Human Rights and Sovereignty Clash, 13 HUM. RTS. BRIEF 25, 28 (2006). 97. Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic, supra note 39, ¶ 3. 98. See Constitución Política de la República Dominicana, June 13, 2015, supra note 72. 99. Manley O. Hudson, Report on Nationality, Including Statelessness, 2 Y.B. OF INT’L L. COMMISSION 7 (1952), https://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_50.pdf (“[i]n principle, questions of nationality fall within the domestic jurisdiction of each State.”); See also Nottebohm, 1955 I.C.J. at 20. 100. According to Human Rights Watch at least 250,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent returned to Haiti between June 2015 and March 2018. These individuals were deported from the Dominican Republic. Other individuals were not officially deported but were coerced to leave the Dominican Republic under pressure or threat. HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, World Report 2019: Events of 2018, 413 (2019). 101. See Haradhan Mohajan, History of Rakhine State and the Origin of the Rohingya Muslims, 2 THE INDON. J. OF SOUTHEAST ASIA STUD. 19 (2018); see also Burma Citizenship Law 1982 (unofficial translation of Pyithu Hluttaw Law No. 4 of 1982), art. 3 (stating, “[N]ationals such as the Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine or Shan and ethnic groups as have settled in any of the territories included within the State as their permanent home from a period anterior to 1185 B.E., 1823 A.D. are Burma citizens).