Latin American Research Review 599 not assess whether they were in the “authorized” or pending (“transcribed”) category (InterAmerican Court of Human Rights 2019, 780). Compliance costs were financial burdens and work disruptions to visit different offices at various points in the application process (local civil registries and the JCE’s central office in Santo Domingo). Psychological costs weighed heavily on applicants, exacerbated by arbitrary and openly discriminatory treatment from JCE authorities at registry offices, which sometimes included requests for specific family identity documents beyond what Law 169-14 required.18 In a country with little legal aid, seeking assistance from a lawyer to get through the process requires resources that most applicants would have difficulty mustering. If the learning, compliance, and psychological costs of Law 169-14 were high for group A, they would prove even stiffer for people in group B. The lack of solid legal evidence of their birthplace rests at the core of group B’s vulnerability, making their lot comparatively harder than for group A and bearing out the assertion that “jus soli prevents statelessness only where it is accompanied by meticulous and generally recognized documentation” (Price 2017, 28). The plan was to formally designate group B as foreigners and extend to them the possibility of applying for naturalization after two years. After registering as foreigners, they were to file documents to try to prove that they were born in and had spent much of their lives in the DR. Besides those born between 1929 and 2007, the affected included registered children born of undocumented parents between 2007 and 2010, since they had been listed as foreigners in the civil registry after 2007 (Sagás 2017, 10). The precise number of people in group B is exceedingly difficult to determine because they have not been entered into the civil registry nor counted accurately in the census. Estimates vary significantly, with the official government figure being approximately 55,000 and some NGO numbers running as high as 180,000 to 200,000 (e.g., Human Rights Watch 2015, 12). Clearly, however, only a small fraction of the total number of individuals in group B applied for naturalization successfully, and even fewer ended up receiving papers to corroborate their Dominican citizenship. Those who received a new set of papers still need to go through the last step of becoming naturalized. The onerous administrative requirements demanded of group B exemplify “politics by other means,” beginning with the sheer paucity of information made publicly available. Poor instructions and little outreach to relevant communities no doubt prevented many of those eligible from even applying. Delays in setting up application units and not opening offices in all provinces of the country created further challenges (Amnesty International 2015, 30–31). Cumbersome documentation requirements constituted a further impediment. Although the registration process itself was technically free, the financial costs involved in getting documents notarized, taking time to travel to civil registry offices, and sometimes even hiring legal assistance were significant for many applicants (Sagás 2017, 10). Additionally, people were required to register in a book for foreigners within 180 days of the 2014 law’s passage, obtain a migratory permit, and complete a burdensome two-year naturalization process with specifications such as a notarized testimony from a certified midwife or seven witnesses to prove birth in the DR—or whatever combination of items a bureaucrat arbitrarily requested (Wooding 2016, 110). Besides having to prove birth in the Dominican Republic, applicants needed to furnish a copy of a residence card, six photos, certificate of no criminal record, parents’ documents, and seven copies of the actual regularization application (Inter-American Court of Human Rights 2019, 786). Reports of unhelpful and even hostile notaries and registrars caused further psychological burdening on an already discouraged and weary population (Amnesty International 2015, 28–31, 34, 36–39). In sum, confusion and misinformation (learning costs); mustering documentary evidence, time, and associated expenses (compliance costs); plus frustration and despair (psychological costs) 18 The full set of overlapping burdens experienced by applicants are described well in Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights (2017, 32–39). https://doi.org/10.1017/lar.2022.48 Published online by Cambridge University Press