Dominican Republic Citizenship Decision Causes Backlash Across The Caribbean

Dominican Republic Citizenship Decision Causes Outcry
In this Sept. 30, 2013 photo, Maria Julia Deguis looks out from her home in Los Jovillos village, known as a batey, in the Monte Plata province of the Dominican Republic. Maria, like with her mother and brother, is of Haitian descent and was born in the D.R. but may lose her citizenship and the rights that go along with it. The country's Constitutional Court ruled that people who were born in the D.R. after 1929 but whose parents were not either citizens or legal residents, are not automatically entitled to citizenship under a new constitution adopted in 2010. (AP Photo/Manuel Diaz)
In this Sept. 30, 2013 photo, Maria Julia Deguis looks out from her home in Los Jovillos village, known as a batey, in the Monte Plata province of the Dominican Republic. Maria, like with her mother and brother, is of Haitian descent and was born in the D.R. but may lose her citizenship and the rights that go along with it. The country's Constitutional Court ruled that people who were born in the D.R. after 1929 but whose parents were not either citizens or legal residents, are not automatically entitled to citizenship under a new constitution adopted in 2010. (AP Photo/Manuel Diaz)

The recent decision by the highest court in the Dominican Republic to cancel the citizenship of three generations of residents is meeting a firestorm of protest, with human rights advocates warning of a humanitarian nightmare for the entire Caribbean region.

The Dominican Constitutional Court, citing the country's 2010 constitution, retroactively stripped the citizenship of people born after 1929 to parents without Dominican ancestry, declaring that they were residing in the country illegally or with temporary permits.

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