60 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic migrant workers, most of whom have historically been Haitians. The communication read as follows: A meeting was held with officials from the Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Army where it was agreed that the Central Electoral Board, in concert with the Office of the Director General of Immigration, would prepare a draft law declaring that foreign nationals brought into the country under collective labor contracts are foreigners in transit for the duration of those contracts. This would necessitate substantial changes to the laws on Identification Documents and Immigration in this regard, to prevent permanent visas from being issued to persons who come here to work under a temporary labor contract; once the contract ends, these people would have to return to their countries of origin. 117 114. By way of a preliminary observation in this regard, the Inter-American Commission considers that the situation concerning the right to Dominican nationality in the case of persons born on Dominican soil of parents in an irregular migratory situation exposes the nexus between the fact that their parents were migrants and the acquisition of nationality of the children. 115. The failure to regard these as separate and distinct issues has led to situations in which, based on categories under which it is forbidden to discriminate in the access to nationality, such as the fact that the parents were migrants in an irregular migratory situation, children were denied their right to Dominican nationality and that their parents’ immigration status is deemed to have been passed on to them. At the time of the IACHR’s 1991 visit, the authorities maintained that persons born on Dominican soil of parents in an irregular migratory situation were not Dominican citizens, despite having been born on Dominican soil, and that the principle of jus soli recognized in the Constitution did not apply in the case of children of persons in an irregular migratory situation. 118 The authorities maintained that “if the individual is the child of persons with irregular immigration status, his or her migratory status is also irregular, even if he or she was born here.” 119 3. The IACHR’s monitoring of the situation of Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic 116. Over the course of the years, the organs of the Inter-American Human Rights System (hereinafter the “IAHRS”) have monitored the situation of Haitian migrants and their descendants in the Dominican Republic. Even before monitoring the situation of the nationality of children of Haitian migrants, the Inter-American Commission had 117 118 119 Dominican Republic, Comunicación 4411 del Secretario de Estado de las Fuerzas Armadas, Mayor General Juan Rene Beauchamp Javier al Presidente de la República, Joaquín Balaguer [Communication 4411 from the Secretary of State of the Armed Forces, Major General Juan Rene Beauchamp Javier, to the President of the Republic, Joaquín Balaguer]. Santo Domingo, March 2, 1976. IACHR, Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1991. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.81 Doc. 6 rev. 1, February 14, 1992, p. 292. IACHR, Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1991. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.81 Doc. 6 rev. 1, February 14, 1992, p. 281. Organization of American States | OAS