* 170. With regard to the foregoing, the Court notes that the State’s arguments 154 are insufficient to disprove the facts that this Court has verified previously in other cases, or the documents and expert opinions included in these proceedings before the Court. Moreover, as indicated (supra paras. 159 and 163), the State itself has confirmed some aspects of the alleged context before international organizations or in domestic legislation. 171. Based on the above, the Court observes that, at the time of the events of this case, a situation existed in the Dominican Republic in which Haitians and persons born in Dominican territory of Haitian descent, who were usually undocumented and living in poverty, frequently suffered abuse or discrimination, including from the authorities, which exacerbated their situation of vulnerability. This was also linked to the difficulty of the members of the Haitian population or those of Haitian descent to obtain personal identification documents. The Court also notes the existence in the Dominican Republic at the time of the events of this case, during the 1990s, of a systematic pattern of expulsions of Haitians and persons of Haitian descent, including through collective actions or procedures that did not involve an individualized analysis, that were based on a discriminatory concept. 154 As previously indicated, Dominican Republic stated that a large percentage of its population are of African descent and that their physiognomy is very similar to that of many members of the Haitian population; thus “it cannot be believed” that it would “discriminate against its own ethnic group” and that there is no evidence of such discrimination. The State also denied, based on “official statistics on repatriations,” that it had carried out “mass [or] collective deportations.” The Court has already examined these arguments (supra paras. 159, 167 and 168). Nevertheless, the Court wishes to place on record other similar assertions by the State. The Dominican Republic has affirmed that it had “never [expelled] a Dominican who had been detained and who, during the verification procedure, has produced documents to prove his status as a national.” It also “refute[d] the presumed pattern of immigration control operations or ‘sweeps’ leading to the arrest and subsequent deportation of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian origin,” indicating that “at the time of the supposed facts and acts, it applied a three-stage procedure, consisting of: (a) arrest and identification; (b) investigation and filtering, and (c) verification and confirmation.” In addition, “regarding the supposed deportations during the 1990s and 2000s,” it stated that “Dominican Republic and Haiti had signed a bi-national agreement, [on the] hiring of temporary workers for the sugar harvest, and when this agreement ended, these workers were supposed to return to their country, and those are the supposed deportations; those are the inflated numbers.” Regarding these assertions, the Court refers to its previous considerations (supra para. 167 and footnote 142). The State also asserted that “the number of Haitians, undocumented or in an irregular migratory situation, who are deported, as well as those who are simply returned at the border, bears no relationship of any kind to the number of Haitians who enter the country”; however, this assertion does not contradict the Court’s considerations on the contextual situation (infra para. 171). The Dominican Republic also pointed out that the Court, in the fifth considerandum of its Order on provisional measures related to this case of August 18, 2000 (supra para. 22), indicated that “it ha[d] not been proved […] that the Dominican Republic ha[d] a State policy of mass expulsions and deportations in violation of the express provisions of the Convention.” In this regard, the Court notes that the Court’s observations, within the limited and specific framework of the procedure on provisional measures, was not based on the examination of evidence and arguments inherent in a contentious case, because this was not appropriate given the nature of the said procedure. Rather, as stated in the fifth considerandum of the said Order, the Court only took into account the information that had been provided to it during “the public hearing of August 8, 2000, [and in] the briefs [that had been] presented to [the Court].” Lastly, it is pertinent to refer to assertions made by the State in relation to the arguments concerning the existence of discrimination towards Haitians or those of Haitian descent. Dominican Republic stated that “there is no structural, and especially institutional, discrimination towards immigrants who are Haitian or of Haitian descent,” and that “Dominican society is not racist and, above all, not xenophobic.” In addition, it asked, rhetorically, “how can a State be accused of racial discrimination that […] provides immigrants with health care, education and access to the courts.” It also stated that “[t]he State authorities, particularly those of the Judiciary, do not discriminate against Haitians, irrespective of their migratory status, or against Dominicans of Haitian descent.” Furthermore, it pointed out that, in its 1999 “Report on the situation of human rights in the Dominican Republic,” the Commission had indicated that “the problems that affect the full observance of human rights in the Dominican Republic do not respond to a state policy aimed at violating those rights.” Without this implying a ruling on the truth or inexactitude of the State’s assertions, the Court considers it sufficient to note that the Dominican Republic’s assertions do not contradict the Court’s observations on the contextual situation (supra para. 161 and infra para. 171). 57