Holes in the Rights Framework: Racial Discrimination, Citizenship, And the Rights of Noncitizens‪.‬

Dilcia Yean was born on April 15, 1996, in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican woman of Haitian descent. Although the Dominican constitution establishes the principle of jus soli (and thus assigns citizenship to those born on Dominican territory), Yean was denied Dominican citizenship, and was refused permission to register her birth or to obtain recognition of her le gal personality. (1) Government officials said they had orders not to register or issue birth certificates to children of Haitian descent. The official in charge of the Civil Registry explained that, as Yean had been born to Haitian parents who were in the country illegally, she had no right to Dominican citizenship. Underlying these explanations was a virulent and pervasive prejudice against ethnic Haitians. As an undocumented person, Yean was refused permission to enroll in school and remained vulnerable to expulsion from her own country. (2) Yean's case illustrates the vital importance of citizenship in making effective the promise of fundamental human rights protection. Citizenship is a legal status that serves, in practice, as a precondition to the enjoyment of many rights, including voting, property ownership, health care, education, and travel outside one's own country. Yean is one of millions worldwide who have suffered abuse because of their noncitizen status and/or the inability to obtain citizenship. And, like so many others, Yean has been denied these rights largely because of her ethnicity.