The implications of the ruling of September 23 by the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic, stripping citizenship from the offspring of non-resident Haitians born in the Dominican Republic, where nationality is conferred jus soli, by place of birth, are only beginning to be understood by the international community with the OAS, Amnesty International, and the governments of Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, St Vincent and the Grenadines, openly condemning the violation of human rights it represents. Hanging in the balance are the lives of nearly a quarter of a million Dominicans of Haitian descent – of all ages – who have been rendered stateless by the ruling, in what has been deemed a human rights crisis in the making.
Upon closer examination, what becomes clear is that the ruling does not respond to an immigration crisis precipitated by the devastating earthquake in Haiti of 2010; neither is it an effort to quell the flow of migrant labor from Haiti into the Dominican bateyes or cane fields.