46 | Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Dominican Republic 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 65 Through judgment TC/0168/13, the Constitutional Court retroactively changed the interpretation of “foreigners in transit” in the constitutions in effect from 1929 to 2010, which established that category as a restriction to the acquisition of the right to nationality by jus soli. The court stated that “foreigners in transit” refers to those individuals who do not have legal domicile in the Dominican Republic because they lack a residency permit. The Court applied this interpretation retroactively, arbitrarily depriving tens of thousands of people, mostly descendants of Haitian migrants, of their Dominican nationality. As an interpretation of general scope, the ruling expanded its effects on both those whose births were registered in the Dominican Civil Registry, as those whose births were not registered. These people usually have strong family, social, and cultural ties in the Dominican Republic, as this is their country of birth and upbringing. Many are children or grandchildren of people who were also born in the Dominican Republic; for these families the Dominican Republic has been home for generations. The Commission recognizes that this situation, which it had an opportunity to probe at greater length during the on-site visit, is part of a historical problem that long precedes the current situation. It is a very complex problem with deeply embedded roots. The history leading up to judgment TC/0168/13 should therefore be examined, since in the Commission’s view that judgment was the product of structural racial discrimination against persons of Haitian origin and descent in the Dominican Republic. Since the early 1990s, the Inter-American Commission has monitored the problems that Dominicans of Haitian descent experience as a result of being stripped of their nationality, despite the fact that under the Constitution and the laws in force at the time of their birth, they were entitled to Dominican nationality by virtue of the principle of jus soli. 65 Since then, the Commission has observed how various Dominican authorities have promoted a process of denationalization against Dominicans of Haitian descent. Over the course of the years, a number of practices on the part of private citizens, as well as practices, laws, policies and judicial decisions advanced by various State authorities, generated and consolidated a situation of structural discrimination against Haitian migrants that has become so deeply engrained that it now also applies to their descendants born in the Dominican Republic. The Commission observes that the victims of the various forms of discrimination against persons of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic can be classified into two main groups: a) Haitian migrants, and b) descendants of Haitian migrants born in the Dominican Republic. While the problems besetting these two groups can be traced to the same source, specifically discrimination against persons of Haitian origin and descent, the 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. 271. Organization of American States | OAS