citizenship to those born on its territory, with the exception of children of diplomats and those “in transit” through the country. But Dominican government officials routinely refused to register births of persons of Haitian descent on the ground that Haitian migrants in the country were “in transit,” even if they were long-term residents. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in 2005 that the Dominican Republic’s denial of nationality through its refusal to issue birth certificates violated that country’s own constitution (Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic 2005). The Senate of the Dominican Republic rejected the judgment, followed shortly by a decision of that country’s Constitutional Court upholding the previous interpretation that undocumented migrants should be considered as being “in transit.” Two later developments in the Dominican Republic greatly exacerbated the problem of de jure statelessness. In 2010, the amended Dominican Constitution denied citizenship to children born in the Dominican Republic to parents in the country illegally (U.S. Department of State 2012a). In 2013, the Constitutional Court ruled that this new provision could be applied retroactively. According to human rights groups, more than 200,000 persons of Haitian descent are now stateless; the government insists that this number is less than 25,000. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a strongly worded press release expressing its “deep concern” over the court’s ruling (Organization of American States 2013). In October 2014, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights called for the Dominican Republic to provide redress for human rights abuses, illegal deportations, denial of identity documents, and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, a ruling the Dominican Republic formally rejected. 7 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3150558