124 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic innumerable rights—from education, health, social security, voting, housing or rent, and cultural and scientific activities. The presentation of a birth certificate or, failing that, an Identity and Voter Registration Card is required to fully enjoy these rights. 296. Likewise, in those cases where immigration officers use racial profiling in their work to detain people born on Dominican soil and prevent them from presenting documents to provide evidence of their status, the officers are unaware of the victims’ identity since they do not allow the victims to identify themselves nor do they consider the documents presented. Similarly, this situation affects other rights, such as the right to a name, to the recognition of juridical personality, and to nationality, which in turn affects the right to identity as a whole. 292 What I ask is that this stops, that the [the government] give us our documents. Now the new thing that they’ve created is that we are going to receive a document that says we are Dominicans but only half Dominican, a document that allows you study at university as a foreigner, we cannot acquire a passport because we are not foreigners. We do not want that document that they are going to give us because we feel Dominican, we have always been Dominican and we will remain Dominican (...) I have no identity, I am nobody, I am a zero to the left, I am nobody because I have no identity card. 293 297. The Commission understands that the lack of recognition of identity can mean that persons do not have legal proof of their existence, thereby impeding the full exercise of their civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. 294 In this regard, it observes with concern that the problem in the Dominican Republic regarding the recognition of Dominicans of Haitian descent caused by the Civil Registry’s refusal to issue them the corresponding official documents based on the migratory situation and nationality of their parents entails a breach of the right to identity of these individuals. 298. The Commission has also recognized the validity and application of the right to identity in the specific case of Dominicans of Haitian descent. In this connection, in the Report on the Merits in the Case of Benito Tide Méndez et al., 295 it underscored that recognition of the identity of persons is one of the means whereby observance of the rights to juridical personality, a name, nationality, civil registration, and family relations is facilitated, among other rights recognized in international instruments, 292 293 294 295 I/A Court H.R. Case of Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v. Dominican Republic. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of August 28, 2014. Series C No. 282. par. 274. One woman’s testimony to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Santo Domingo, December 2, 2013. Organization of American States. Resolution AG/RES. 2362 (XXXVIII-O/08), whereby the General Assembly adopted the Inter-American Program for Universal Civil Registry and the “Right to Identity.” Resolution adopted at the fourth plenary session, on June 3, 2008. IACHR, Report on the Merits No. 64/12, Case 12.271, Benito Tide Méndez et al. (Dominican Republic). March 29, 2012, para. 224. Organization of American States | OAS