The facts of the petition relate to arbitrary detention and summary expulsion of people of Haitian descent, including children, from the Dominican Republic.

The Inter-American Court framed its analysis within the context of a systematic pattern of expulsions of Haitians and people of Haitian descent through collective actions or proceedings that did not involve an analysis of each individual case, reflecting a discriminatory notion that existed in the 1990s.

The Inter-American Court analyzes the right to nationality and to equality before the law in relation to the state's duty to prevent and avoid statelessness, as well as the minimum guarantees that should govern immigration proceedings