50 Introducing ‘unwanted’ noncitizens parents (jus sanguinis), while others allocate formal citizenship based on birth on the territory (jus soli). A child born on the territory of a jus sanguinis State to citizens of a jus soli State will struggle to claim any citizenship.28 Other factors, like disruptions to normal birth registration, can also make it difficult for children to be allocated a citizenship. This might happen in the context of war, migration or epidemic, for example. People can also become stateless as adults. For example, when a person’s State of citizenship ceases to exist or changes in form, s/he may find her/imself outside citizenship frameworks. Widespread instances of this have occured during periods of decolonisation (e.g. the ending of the British Empire and the USSR), with effects that are still being felt.29 The recent splitting of the State of Sudan is now also making it difficult for some people to assert a citizenship.30 In some countries people may have their citizenship removed, or renounce their citizenship voluntarily. Consider the case of the Dominican Republic, where persons identified as having Haitian heritage had their formal citizenships removed. This shows how administrative status interplays with existing systems of prejudice and constructions of entitlement. The Dominican Republic shares the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The two States have a complex and intertwined history of colonisation, slavery and war, and of repressive dictatorships in both countries. In 2013, the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic ruled to uphold a Constitutional amendment to, as one commentator has described it, ‘revoke the citizenship rights of children born to undocumented immigrants in the Dominican Republic (who are predominantly of Haitian origin).’31 Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic has a long history, from those moving to work in the sugar industry in the twentieth century to those who fled the dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2010, Haitians again fled to the Dominican Republic and elsewhere to escape the after-effects of a major earthquake.32 There has long been discrimination in the Dominican Republic against people who, because of their darker complexion, are seen as being of Haitian 28 For example, consider the case of Daniella, born to Cuban parents in South Africa, and after over eight years at the time of writing still unable to make use of a citizenship. Liesl Muller (2016) ‘South African courts confirm the right to nationality of a stateless child – 20-year-old legal principle protecting steels children is finally implemented’, European Network on Statelessness 13 September 2016 www.statelessness.eu/blog/south-african-courts-confirm-right-nationality stateless-child-20-year-old-legal-principle (accessed 4 April 2017). Despite the positive decision described in this post, at the time of writing, Daniella has still not acquired a passport. 29 See for example, Bronwen Manby (2009) Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, Zed Books. 30 See for example, Mike Sanderson (2014) ‘Key Threats of Statelessness in the Post-Secession Sudanese and South Sudanese Nationality Regimes’, Open Research Exeter, University of Exeter. 31 Jillian Blake (2014) ‘Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Race-based Statelessness in the Americas’, Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspective 6, p. 141. 32 Blake 2014 ibid. p. 147.