62 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic foreigners. Nevertheless, the prevailing law in the Dominican Republic is that of jus soli, and the exceptions established by the Dominican Constitution in its Article 11 refer to "the legitimate children of foreign residents in the country as diplomatic representatives or individuals in transit in the country." With regard to the second exception, we cannot say that the persons who have been expelled were "in transit," since many of them have lived 20, 30, and even 40 years in the Dominican Republic. 124 119. Later, on the occasion of the IACHR’s on-site visit to the Dominican Republic in 1997, the Commission again observed that: The situation of illegality is passed on to the children, even when they have been born in the Dominican Republic. The children do not have documents because their parents don’t have documents either. It is practically impossible to obtain them, either because the officers of the hospitals or civil registries refuse to issue a birth certificate or because the relevant authorities refuse to enter them in the civil registry. The argument usually given by government officials is that the parents do not possess the document identifying them as temporary workers, placing them in the category of foreigners in transit--even though they have lived in the Dominican Republic for years. 125 120. In its 2001 Annual Report the Commission followed up on a number of situations: access to citizenship in the case of descendants of Haitian migrants, conditions in the bateyes where the migrant workers and their families lived, and the matter of collective expulsions. In general, the Commission observed that: the process of registering the births of the children of migrants with the registry offices is still fraught with obstacles because the authorities demand the kind of identification documents from the parents that only Dominican citizens or persons with permanent residency possess; living conditions in the bateyes were worse than in 1999 because the State sugar mills had been privatized; and while the figures on the number of persons deported were down, the Dominican State continued its practice of collective deportations. 126 121. Between 1998 and 2015, the Commission held 16 thematic hearings on this problem. 127. Furthermore, in this period the Commission also requested information 124 125 126 127 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. IACHR, Report on the situation of human rights in the Dominican Republic. OEA/Ser.L/V/II.104 Doc. 49 rev. 1, October 7, 1999, par. 352. IACHR, Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Chapter V .Follow-up of the Recommendations formulated by the IACHR in its reports on the Situation of Human Rights in member states: Dominican Republic. OEA/Ser./L/V/II.114 doc. 5 rev., April 16, 2002. See, IACHR, Hearing on the human rights situation of the migrant workers in the Dominican Republic. 100th Session, October 7, 1998; Hearing on Case 12,189 – Dilcia Jean and Violeta Bosico, Dominican Republic. 104th Session, October 5, 1998; Hearing on Case 12,189 – Dilcia Jean and Violeta Bosico, Dominican Republic. 106th Session, March 6, 2000; Hearing on Case 12,189 - Dilcia Jean and Violeta Bosico, Dominican Republic. 113th Session, November 15, 2001; IACHR, Hearing on the situation of Haitian and Dominican-Haitian Communities in the Dominican Republic. 123rd Session, October 21, 2005; Hearing on the situation created by the General Migration Law of the Dominican Republic. 124th Session, March 3, 2006; Hearing on racial discrimination in the Dominican Republic. 127th Session, March 2, 2007; Hearing on the Application of the 2004 Migration Law in Organization of American States | OAS